Life Advocacy Briefing

February 16, 2026

Abetting Suicide Now Legal in New York / Denver Catholics Get a New Archbishop
Marching for Life … Near You? / Another Judge Confirmed
Senate Voting Records / Running Out of Patience
March for Life Address / House Voting Record / Wisdom from Mr. Hyde

Abetting Suicide Now Legal in New York

NEW YORK GOV. KATHY HOCHUL (D) HAS SIGNED an abetted suicide law, reports Sarah Holliday for The Washington Stand, “making New York the 13^th state (plus Washington, DC) to legalize such legislation. …

“Medical Aid in Dying ‘allows’ terminally ill adults with a prognosis of six months or less to live to request lethal medication to end their lives,” explains Ms. Holliday. “The law will take effect as of Aug. 5, 2026. … The governor allegedly negotiated amendments to add what some consider safeguards,” writes Ms. Holliday. But “safeguards really can’t exist at all in an Act that is meant to bring about death for anyone who claims to have been diagnosed with no more will to live. …

“No checklist of procedural hurdles can change the reality that assisted suicide treats human life as negotiable when pain or decline sets in,” notes Ms. Holliday. “It reframes a cry for help as a ‘right,’ shifting society’s response from preserving life to facilitating death.’”

Denver Catholics Get a New Archbishop

THE POPE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, Pope Leo XIV, has appointed Bishop James R. Golka as archbishop of Denver. The new prelate has been serving as bishop of Colorado Springs.

Then-bishop Golka, along with his predecessor and the other bishops in Colorado, reports Patrick Delaney for LifeSiteNews, “informed Catholic legislators who voted for the state’s Reproductive Health Equity Act in 2022 that they were not to receive Holy Communion until they had contrition and received absolution” through a church sacrament. “The bill, which became law,” notes Mr. Delaney, “eliminated any restrictions on abortion and allowed for the direct killing of preborn girls and boys up until the moment of birth. …

“And in an open letter with his brother bishops in the state last year,” writes Mr. Delaney, Bishop “Golka was also outspoken against so-called Coverage for Pregnancy-Related Services legislation, which sought to allocate a minimum of $1.5 million in taxpayer funds per year toward abortions. The bishops implored [Gov. Jared] Polis [D] to veto the bill, which he went on to sign on April 24, 2025.”

Marching for Life … Near You?

STATE-LEVEL MARCHES are being planned for Phoenix, Arizona, on Feb. 28, and in March: Frankfort, KY, on the 11^th, Atlanta, GA, on the 12^th, and on the 16^th: Sacramento, CA, and Annapolis, MD. Information can be found on the March for Life website at https://marchforlife.org/statemarches.

Another Judge Confirmed

THE U.S. SENATE HAS CONFIRMED another Life advocate as a US District Judge. Confirmation of Justin Olson as US District Judge for the Southern District of Indiana was bitterly opposed by the left-wing Alliance for Justice (AfJ), claiming he is “biased against reproductive freedom.”

Said the AfJ in lobbying against his confirmation: “Olson has demonstrated a concerning disregard for the humanity of pregnant people[!], enthusiastically promoting anti-abortion statutes that establish fetal personhood, using a veneer of secularism to cover up clear religious motivations. He argues that courts should ignore any personal religious motives behind these statues [sic], because states have a ‘legitimate interest in protecting fetal life’ and statues [sic] that establish fetal personhood are simply articulating ‘scientific conclusions.’” There is more, but that drivel is enough to establish AfJ’s disdain and “reasoning.”

We thank the majority of Senators for confirming this judge, and we publish the Senate votes on his confirmation and on the procedural cloture motion which brought it forward below.

Senate Voting Records

Confirmation of Justin Olson as District Judge for Southern District of Indiana – Confirmed 50-47 (needing 50) – Feb. 5, 2026 (Democrats in italics; “Independents” marked “I”)

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

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, Kaine & Warner/VA, Cantwell & Murray/WA, Baldwin/WI.

Not voting: Moran/KS, McConnell/KY, Lee/UT.

Cloture motion to bring forward Nomination of Justin Olson – Adopted 51-47 – Feb. 5, 2026 (Democrats in italics; “Independents” marked “I”)

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

Not voting: Moran/KS, McConnell/KY.

Running Out of Patience

Feb. 11, 2026, Politico report by Alice Miranda Ollstein

Some Senate Republicans emerged disappointed from a closed-door briefing Tuesday with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, saying the agency is not taking a safety review of the abortion pill mifepristone seriously and calling for Congressional action to curb access to the drug.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said in an interview Makary failed to give a timetable for completion of the review, explain what the audit will involve and disclose whether it was even underway.

“I think that this safety study is a dead end,” Hawley said. “I just think that FDA is not serious about it. I don’t think that they’re proceeding with any sense of urgency whatsoever. If they’re really proceeding at all, I, frankly, can’t tell.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the chair[man] of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee, who organized the briefing for select GOP senators, in a statement also blasted “the lack of progress on HHS and FDA’s promised safety study on these dangerous drugs” as “disappointing,” and complained the review was “moving too slowly.”

It’s not clear what comes next. Republicans have previously tried and failed to impose restrictions on mifepristone, which is used in more than two-thirds of abortions, through government funding legislation. Hawley said he has not yet decided whether to attempt to place guardrails on the drug as part of the next appropriations process or introduce a standalone bill, but that he will roll out his plans in the coming weeks.

“I don’t have confidence [the FDA review] is going to amount to anything,” he said. “My view is, Congress now needs to get involved.”

Reached for comment, Health & Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon referred Politico to a previous agency statement asserting the FDA “is taking care to do this study properly and in the right way.”

“We are planning to complete the study as soon as possible while ensuring we are not cutting any corners from a scientific research standpoint,” the statement reads, adding that such reviews “often take approximately a year or more to conduct.”

Conservative anger with the Trump Administration has boiled over in recent months over its decision to leave in place Biden-era rules that expanded access to abortion pills via mail and telemedicine, and for approving a new generic version of the drug. Administration officials took narrower steps in January to roll back access to mifepristone at retail pharmacies, but the anti-abortion movement and its allies in Congress are pressuring the FDA to abolish telemedicine prescription of the drugs or ban them altogether.*

At the same time, several GOP states are suing the agency, including Cassidy’s Louisiana and Hawley’s Missouri. The Administration has tried to rebuff these lawsuits, asking judges to wait until FDA’s ongoing study is completed before issuing a ruling. Anti-abortion activists, tired of waiting, have threatened to withhold resources from the GOP in the upcoming midterm elections if they don’t see action on the drugs.

*Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: You bet we are!

March for Life Address

Today’s Life Advocacy transcript from the Jan. 23, 2026, March for Life in Washington continues a lengthy speech by Vice President J.D. Vance; we published the first segment last week.

… And this is something we’re so proud of – we’re returning accountability to our foreign policy as well. Under Joe Biden, it was the policy of the United States to export abortion and radical gender ideology all around the world; that is what they did with your tax money. They would relentlessly bully developing countries into parroting their far-left views, but under President Trump’s leadership and with our great Secretary of State, we believe that every country in the world has the duty to protect life, and that it’s not our job as the United States of America to promote radical gender ideology; it’s our job to promote families and human flourishing. Now that’s why we’ve completely realigned US foreign aid and turned off the tap for NGO’s whose sole purpose is to dissuade people from having kids. It’s why we rejoined the Geneva consensus declaration to promote maternal health and strong families all over the world. And it’s why we speak up when other nations throw pro-life and pro-family advocates in prison for silent prayer, which we’ve seen way too much, but it’s got to stop.

And today our administration is proud to announce a historic expansion of the Mexico City policy. We’re gonna start blocking every international NGO that performs or promotes abortion abroad from receiving a dollar of US money. Now we’re expanding this policy to protect life, to combat DEI and the radical gender ideologies that prey on our children, and with these additions the rule will now cover every non-military foreign assistance that America sends. All in all, we’ve expanded the Mexico City policy about three times as big as it was before, and we’re proud of it, because we believe in fighting for life.

And a lot of you may know that under the Biden Administration, they used Medicaid and other programs to launder your tax dollars into abortion money all over the United States of America. And with the help, with the help of our Republican majorities in Congress, with the working families tax cuts, we stopped that practice once and for all. It’s illegal now, exactly as it should be.

Let me just say, my friends, that we have to be clear; we cannot be neutral, our country cannot be indifferent about whether its next generations live or die, because – think about it – what ultimately gives meaning and life to the United States of America? This is not a new question; every civilization has been forced to answer it. You march today – we march today because you have an answer to this question about what kind of civilization we are and about what kind of civilization we’re going to become in the future.

[We expect to publish more of our V.P. Vance transcript in next week’s Life Advocacy Briefing.]

House Voting Record

Final Passage – HR-6945 – Supporting Pregnant & Parenting Women & Families Act – Passed 215-209 – Jan. 21, 2026 (Democrats in italics)

Voting “yes” / pro-Life: Aderholt, Moore, Palmer, Rogers, Strong/AL; Begich/AK; Biggs, Ciscomani, Crane, Gosar, Hamadeh, Schweikert/AZ; Crawford, Hill, Westerman/AR; Calvert, Fong, Issa, Kiley, Kim, Obernolte, Valadao/CA; Boebert, Crank, Evans, Hurd/CO; Bean, Bilirakis, Buchanan, Cammack, Diaz-Balart, Donalds, Dunn, Fine, Franklin, Gimenez, Haridopolos, Lee, Luna, Mast, Mills, Patronis, Rutherford, Salazar, Steube, Webster/FL; Allen, Carter, Clyde, Collins, Jack, Loudermilk, McCormick, Scott/GA; Fulcher, Simpson/ID; Bost, LaHood, Miller/IL; Baird, Houchin, Messmer, Shreve, Spartz, Stutzman, Yakym/IN; Feenstra, Hinson, Miller-Meeks, Nunn/IA; Estes, Mann, Schmidt/KA; Barr, Comer, Guthrie, Massie, Rogers/KY; Higgins, Letlow, Scalise/LA; Harris/MD; Barrett, Bergman, Huizenga, James, McClain, Moolenaar, Walberg/MI; Emmer, Finstad, Fischbach, Stauber/MN; Ezell, Guest, Kelly/MS; Alford, Burlison, Graves, Onder, Smith, Wagner/MO; Downing, Zinke/MT; Bacon, Flood, Smith/NE; Amodei/NV; Kean, Smith, VanDrew/NJ; Garbarino, LaLota, Langworthy, Lawler, Malliotakis, Tenney/NY; Edwards, Foxx, Harrigan, Harris, Hudson, Knott, McDowell, Moore, Murphy, Rouzer/NC; Fedorchak/ND; Balderson, Carey, Davidson, Jordan, Joyce, Latta, Miller, Rulli, Taylor, Turner/OH; Bice, Brecheen, Cole, Hern, Lucas/OK; Bentz/OR; Bresnahan, Fitzpatrick, Joyce, Kelly, MacKenzie, Meuser, Perry, Reschenthaler, Smucker, Thompson/PA; Biggs, Fry, Mace, Norman, Timmons, Wilson/SC; Johnson/SD; Burchett, DesJarlais, Fleischmann, Harshbarger, Kustoff, Ogles, Rose, VanEpps/TN; Arrington, Babin, Carter, Cloud, Crenshaw, Cuellar, DeLaCruz, Ellzey, Fallon, Gill, Goldman, Gonzales, Gooden, Jackson, Luttrell, McCaul, Moran, Nehls, Pfluger, Roy, Self, Sessions, VanDuyne, Weber, Williams/TX; Kennedy, Maloy, Moore, Owens/UT; Cline, Griffith, Kiggans, McGuire, Wittman/VA; Baumgartner, Newhouse/WA; Miller, Moore/WV; Fitzgerald, Grothman, Steil, Tiffany, VanOrden, Wied/WI; Hageman/WY. And House Speaker Mike Johnson/LA.

Voting “no” / anti-Life: Figures, Sewell/AL; Ansari, Grijalva, Stanton/AZ; Aguilar, Barragan, Bera, Brownley, Carbajal, Chu, Cisneros, Correa, Costa, DeSaulnier, Friedman, Garamendi, Garcia, Gomez, Gray, Harder, Huffman, Jacobs, Kamlager-Dove, Khanna, Levin, Liccardo, Lieu, Lofgren, Matsui, Min, Mullin, Panetta, Pelosi, Peters, Rivas, Ruiz, Sanchez, Sherman, Simon, Takano, Thompson, Torres, Tran, Vargas, Waters, Whitesides/CA; Crow, DeGette, Neguse, Pettersen/CO; Courtney, DeLauro, Hayes, Himes, Larson/CT; McBride/DE; Castor, Cherfilus-McCormick, Frankel, Frost, Moskowitz, Soto, Wasserman-Schultz, Wilson/FL; Bishop, Johnson, McBath, Scott, Williams/GA; Case, Tokuda/HI; Budzinski, Casten, Davis, Foster, Garcia, Jackson, Kelly, Krishnamoorthi, Quigley, Ramirez, Schakowsky, Schneider, Sorensen, Underwood/IL; Carson, Mrvan/IN; Davids/KS; McGarvey/KY; Carter, Fields/LA; Golden, Pingree/ME; Elfreth, Hoyer, Ivey, McClain-Delaney, Mfume, Olszewski, Raskin/MD; Auchincloss, Clark, Keating, Lynch, McGovern, Moulton, Neal, Pressley, Trahan/MA; Dingell, McDonald-Rivet, Scholten, Stevens, Thanedar, Tlaib/MI; Craig, McCollum, Morrison, Omar/MN; Thompson/MS; Bell, Cleaver/MO; Horsford, Lee, Titus/NV; Goodlander, Pappas/NH; Conaway, Gottheimer, McIver, Menendez, Norcross, Pallone, Pou, Watson-Coleman/NJ; Leger-Fernandez, Stansbury, Vasquez/NM; Clarke, Espaillat, Gillen, Goldman, Jeffries, Kennedy, Latimer, Mannion, Meeks, Meng, Morelle, Nadler, Ocasio-Cortez, Riley, Ryan, Suozzi, Tonko, Velazquez/NY; Adams, Davis, Foushee, Ross/NC; Beatty, Brown, Kaptur, Landsman, Sykes/OH; Bonamici, Bynum, Dexter, Hoyle, Salinas/OR; Boyle, Dean, Deluzio, Evans, Hoolehan, Lee, Scanlon/PA; Amo, Magaziner/RI; Clyburn/SC; Cohen/TN; Castro, Crockett, Doggett, Escobar, Fletcher, Garcia, Gonzalez, Green, Johnson, Veasey/TX; Balint/VT; Beyer, McClellan, Scott, Subramanyam, Vindman, Walkinshaw/VA; DelBene, Jayapal, Larsen, Perez, Randall, Schrier, Smith, Strickland/WA; Moore, Pocan/WI.

Not voting: Womack (AR), McClintock & Swalwell (CA), Stefanik & Torres (NY), Casar & Hunt (TX).

Wisdom 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.

… There’s no argument here about when human life begins. The child who’s destroyed is unmistakably alive, unmistakably human and unmistakably brutally destroyed.