Life Advocacy Briefing

A Nominee Worthy of Your Calls

PRES. TRUMP HAS NOMINATED A COMMITTED PRO-LIFE DOCTOR as the next administrator of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). Her name is Dr. Heidi Nycole Overton, and she is, reports Paul Batura for Focus on the Family’s Daily Citizen, “a highly respected and accomplished White House health-policy advisor.” Her credentials include summa cum laude graduation from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and surgical residency at Johns Hopkins, Daily Citizen reports. Her nomination is subject to confirmation by the Senate.

Senators’ offices may be reached via 202/224-3121, and calls from pro-life citizens are both warranted and crucial to her confirmation, as her pro-life credentials will undoubtedly become a rallying cry to those whose mission is to maintain the wild-west marketing of mifepristone to kill developing babies.

“In 2022,” reports Mr. Batura, “the FDA Commissioner nominee called the Dobbs decision and the overturning of Roe ‘a huge victory for Life.’ She added, ‘Human life is not disposable but a precious gift from God with inherent worth and dignity.’”

Around the same time, in a column for the Daily Caller, reports Mr. Batura, Dr. Overton wrote, “‘It should be clear where the radicalism lies. Americans should reject abortion radicalism and require policies informed by 21^st century science and medicine. Then, indeed, we would all be “Following the Science!”’”

Perhaps most significantly, given the post to which she is being appointed, Dr. Overton in 2023 “co-authored a brief for the America First Policy Institute warning about the ‘dangerous rise in chemical abortions.’ In the opening paragraph,” Mr. Batura writes, “the authors [which include Dr. Overton] rightly described abortion as being ‘corrosive to children, women and society broadly, because it devalues and extinguishes human life.’

“They concluded,” reports Mr. Batura: “‘All administrative and legal proceedings on tele-abortion should be monitored, and America First policies should focus on immediately battling the effort to normalize abortion-on-demand and on broadly recognizing the evidence of the risk posed to women. In the upcoming state legislative sessions and the 118^th Congress, policymakers should prioritize providing greater protection for the two lives involved – the mother and the baby – especially with safeguards to protect women and children from the dangers of teleabortion.’”

In what could well be an understatement – given the characters currently comprising the US Senate – Mr. Batura concludes: “Dr. Overton’s upcoming confirmation hearings are expected to be contentious. Please join us in praying for wisdom throughout the unfolding and undoubtedly combative process.’” 

And please call your two US Senators – no matter their party – and ask them to vote to confirm Dr. Overton as FDA commissioner. America needs this position to be filled. Now.

U.S. to Take Lead in ‘Geneva Consensus’ Coalition

WITH A SHIFT IN POLICY UNDERWAY IN HUNGARY, the country’s new prime minister has withdrawn his country from the chief leadership role in an international pro-life declaration known as the Geneva Consensus Declaration, to which the US became a signatory in 2020, along with 31 other nations. Hungary’s withdrawal from leadership – though not from participation – has led to the assumption of that role by, guess who – the United States of America.

“The US Dept. of Health & Human Services,” reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “affirmed [on Aug. 12] the United States’ acceptance of its role as the next rotating Secretariat of the … declaration, affirming support for the right to life around the world.”

The declaration “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.’ Today,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “it boasts the signatures of more than 40 nations.” [Somebody should send a copy to Massachusetts!]

The declaration was designed to add collegial power to those countries which desire to resist pressure from the United Nations or other international bodies, such as the World Health Organization, International Planned Parenthood or the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

“In a joint statement from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Trump Administration announced the Secretariat will be housed in HHS’s Office of Global Affairs and will ‘carry this work forward through a whole-of-government’ [approach] toward ‘supporting families, promoting women’s health and protecting children at all stages of life.’”

Too Hot to Handle?

THE LITIGATION ARM OF ‘ABORTION IN AMERICA’ – an outfit called “Amplify Legal” – has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Live Action, demanding the pro-life group stop using the word “killing” when referring to abortion. (What else is it, pray tell!)

Abortion in America is a group, reports Quinn Delamater for The Washington Stand, which, it declares, “‘exists to make access a reality for everyone.’” Access to what? To abortion, though the uncomfortable word is left out of their self-description. The advocacy group was founded by the late Cecile Richards, a recent president of Planned Parenthood. Its legal arm, meanwhile, is funded not only by Abortion in America but also by the Hopewell Fund, notes Ms. Delamater, which is “backed by George Soros, the American investor and far-left political activist.”

“‘We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars every year being fed into these funds by various left-wing billionaires,’ Peter Breen, executive vice president and head of litigation at the Thomas More Society,” said, quoted by Ms. Delamater. “Breen warned,” he writes, “that this is also an attack on pro-lifers’ freedom of speech. ‘Of course it’s an uncomfortable word,’ he acknowledged of the word ‘killing.’ But what are you doing in an abortion? You are killing a living human being. Uncomfortable, but certainly true.’”

Blowback

THE SIGNING BY MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MAURA HEALEY (D) of legislation overtly and expressly legalizing the killing of a gestating baby all the way to birth is reverberating in the Bay State and beyond. Seeing it as a possible shift – dare we hope – away from radicalism among elected abortion advocates (who desire re-election), we will be focusing on some of that reaction in this Life Advocacy Briefing to a greater degree than our normal focus. We hope it encourages readers that there may be a crack developing in the bridge-too-far. (See especially Family Research Council’s commentary below from the Aug. 15 The Washington Stand.)

A Handful of Reluctant Democrats Speak Up

Aug. 15, 2026, The Washington Stand commentary by Quinn Delamater

             Some progressive lawmakers in Massachusetts have broken with their governor and admitted that aborting a child at full-term gestation is uncivilized.

             Earlier this week, Gov. Maura Healey of Massachusetts, a lesbian-identifying Democrat, signed a bill into law that allows for late-term abortions past 24 weeks gestation with no restrictions. The move puts the state on the opposite side of overwhelming public opinion. A March 2026 Pew Research poll found that 76% of Americans support restrictions on abortion.

             “It’s election season, which means the Democratic Party is single-mindedly pursuing new ways to promote limitless abortion,” Matt Carpenter, director of Family Research Council Action at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “Just as this obsequious devotion to the abortion lobby probably cost them the Presidency in 2024 – as Kamala Harris campaigned almost exclusively on expanding abortion rights and in Congress, as lifelong Democratic voters, who’ve been OK with pro-choice politicians, chafed at the state of the new pro-abortion Democratic Party – there’s a real chance they will fall short in some key races this year, because voters aren’t particularly interested in expanding late-term abortion.”

             The Prioritizing Patient Care Act passed in the Massachusetts House of Representatives 119-33, backed by majority Democrats. But not all the liberal members were happy. Jeffrey Turco, a Democrat representative from Winthrop told Fox News Digital “the new law is barbaric. … It represents an extremist and dangerous position,” he continued. “To be clear, it allows abortion anytime, unrestricted and in many cases, publicly funded until the moment of birth.” Turco added that the bill was “rushed through the legislative process in two weeks, without an opportunity for the public to weigh in,” and was “out of step with the views of the average person in Massachusetts.” …

             Chris Markey, a Democratic representative from Dartmouth, agreed that the legalization of the bill is disheartening. “I am deeply disappointed in the passage of this bill. This bill creates a very slippery slope*,” Markey told Fox News Digital. “I believe this law puts doctors in a very difficult ethical dilemma, as well as conflicts with long-standing criminal case law. This law, I believe, is not consistent with the beliefs of the vast majority of my constituents. While many are pro-choice, you can still be pro-choice and see this law as going beyond the norms of acceptability.”

             Dennis Gallagher, a Democratic representative from Plymouth, pointed out that alternatives to abortion should be an option during a pregnancy. “At that point in a pregnancy, if the health of the mother is fine and the baby’s health is fine, I just think alternatives should be encouraged for that baby. So that’s what I struggled with. But it should always be between a woman and their doctor.” [Note, he doesn’t even use a female pronoun! For a pregnant mother!]

             Alan Silvia, a Democratic representative from Bristol, wondered why there are stronger laws protecting non-humans. Silvia asked why lawmakers make more legislation to protect endangered animals from the unborn in statement to Fox News. “My position has been consistent. I believe in protecting human life, including the life of the unborn,” he reiterated. “We go to extraordinary lengths as a society to protect vulnerable life, saving whales and saving strays, yet when it comes to an unborn child, that same sense of protection too often seems to disappear,” Silvia said. “As a legislator, I cannot support policies that continue to expand abortion, particularly in later stages of pregnancy. This is not an issue I take lightly, and I understand there are deeply held views on both sides, but I will continue to stand by my convictions and vote accordingly.”

*Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: The new law does not “create a slippery slope” – it reaches the bottom of the slippery slope, which begins with hard-case exceptions. The reason for outlawing abortion is that an innocent little human life is extinguished, at any stage of a baby’s development. It is encouraging to see that a handful of Democratic politicians could not go so far as their colleagues and voted “no,” but the slope was broached a long time ago and the damage cannot be ameliorated by compromises. It is, as President Reagan said, a time to choose. There is no middle way.

The Ghouls’ Celebration

Aug. 13, 2026, LifeSiteNews blog by Jonathon VanMaren

[A note of caution … the following write-up describes the ghoulish actions of an abortionist. We apologize for its sometimes-graphic nature.]

             There are scenes that sum up the sickness of an era, and we saw one of them unfold in the office of Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey on Monday. She was at her desk, surrounded by beaming women. There was flashing and the sound of camera shutters; the governor bent over and signed a document. She nodded as the women broke out into laughter and applause. “Thank you,” she said. She handed out the pens she used to sign the document as souvenirs so that the triumphant spectators could remember and relish the moment.

             The momentous event was Gov. Healey’s signing of the Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act, which eliminated one of the state’s last remaining abortion laws. Previously, abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy was restricted to a handful of instances, including to “preserve the life of the patient” or the patient’s “physical or mental health,” the likelihood that the child would not survive long outside the womb, or a “lethal fetal anomaly.” Now, abortion is legal until birth.

             The name of the law is a lie. This legislation does not prioritize patients. It permits the killing of full-term babies that can survive outside the womb. (A preemie born at 21 weeks survived in Iowa last year.) The previous Massachusetts regime already permitted the destruction of preborn children who might not survive; it permitted the killing of those that were sick; it allowed the termination of those who were disabled.

             This law is something else. It ensures that women can have healthy babies murdered any time before delivery.

             “Wondering what (and who) your baby will look like?” The pregnancy website What to Expect tells us: “If you had a baby cam at 24 weeks pregnant, you’d almost be able to tell by now. That beautiful face, though still tiny, is almost fully formed, complete with eyelashes, eyebrows and hair.” The little girl or boy can recognize music, is about 11.5 inches long and is accumulating baby fat. Even “pro-choice” people rarely deny that at this stage, we are talking about a baby.

             That is what made the cackling in Healey’s office so sinister. These women were not celebrating “prioritizing the patient.” They are celebrating a procedure that is undeniably infanticide; a procedure that involves injecting babies with heart-stopping poison; grim stillbirths; crushed skulls; severed limbs. They are celebrating hard tools tearing through soft baby flesh; tiny heads separated from bodies; small hands opening and closing as small bodies are targeted with violence. As one nurse recalled after a late-term abortion: “That baby boy had the most perfect angelic face I have ever seen.”

             “I grabbed something, crushed it a little, removed it and threw it onto a cloth,” one abortionist recalled. “I look, and I see a hand – quite a large hand. The child was three, perhaps four months old. I had no tape to measure it. … As I pull out the mess, thinking it will be bone fragments I lay it on the cloth, I look, and I see a human heart, contracting and expanding and beating, beating, beating. I thought I would go mad. I can see that the heartbeat is slowing, ever more slowly, and more slowly still, until it finally stops completely. Nobody could’ve seen what I had seen with my very own eyes and be more convinced than I was – I had killed a human being.” That child was the last of 48,000 babies he aborted.

             The arguments of ignorant pro-choice people died in Healey’s office on Monday, because the killing the crowd was celebrating was of a kind that is beyond nuance. In the early stages of pregnancy, pro-choice people can pretend that we are not talking about babies; they can pretend that babies are not people; they can claim the babies being suctioned into bloody slurry do not feel pain.

             The women gathered in Healey’s office cannot pretend any of those things. They have planted their bloody flag on a pile of corpses that are recognizable even to a fanatic as children; we can see their faces. We can see that they look like us – only more innocent. They know this, and they laughed as Healey signed their death warrant.

             “There is a kind of laughter that sickens the soul,” Mervyn Peake wrote in 1956. “Laughter when it is out of control; when it screams and stamps its feet and sets the bells jangling in the next town. Laughter in all its ignorance and its cruelty. Laughter with the seed of Satan in it. It tramples upon shrines; the belly-roarer. It roars, it yells, it is delirious; and yet it is as cold as ice. It has no humor. It is naked noise and naked malice.”

Massachusetts Is Not Alone

THOUGH MUCH ATTENTION IS TURNED TOWARD MASSACHUSETTS in the signing of an abortion-till-birth law, pro-life citizens ask our neighbors – do not think Massachusetts is alone.

“Twenty-one states and DC have no protections for the unborn based on gestational age,” notes Family Research Council (FRC), “or they have laws with similar ‘exceptions’ that allow abortion for any reason. And since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling in 2022, pro-abortion forces have increasingly been turning to ballot initiatives to inscribe abortion access directly into their constituents.”

The family policy group notes that “abortion will again be on the ballot in Idaho, Missouri, Nevada and Virginia,” this November. “In three of those states, voters will consider measures expanding or constitutionalizing abortion rights, while Missouri voters will have an opportunity to reverse the abortion-rights amendment adopted there in 2024.”

After outlining FRC’s own projects intended to alert and inform voters to the issues at stake on their ballots, the group’s president Tony Perkins asks, “Please join me in praying for the governor of Massachusetts and all leaders who share her views on abortion – that they would come to know Christ and uphold the sanctity of human life. Scripture tells us,” he adds, “that ‘the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers’ to the light of the Gospel (II Corinthians 4:4). If they could only see Christ,” says Mr. Perkins, “they would come to value those created in His image.”

Meanwhile, he vows, “together we will continue to stand for truth and protect the vulnerable.” Amen!

A Model Example

We offer our readers a powerful example of the damage to society in legalized abortion – even in “the hard cases.” We invite you to save this and use it in opportunities for gentle persuasion. (It is not original with us, but we have employed it as a model in our Winning with Life seminars.)

             A mother has given birth to three children born blind, two born deaf and one born mentally retarded. Now she herself has syphilis, and she’s expecting another baby.

             Would you advise her to undergo an abortion?

             [If the answer is “yes,”] You just killed Beethoven.