Life Advocacy Briefing

Worthy of Your Input

THE SENATE IS PREPARING to vote on Sept. 14 on the nomination of Matthew Byrne to the District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. We plan to publish the voting record on the motion to bring him forward (cloture) and, if that is adopted, on his confirmation. We do not always get enough notice of when such votes are to occur, but in this case, the cloture motion has been on the schedule since the Senate left on August recess.

Here is why our readers might wish to call your own Senators to ask for a “yes” vote on cloture and confirmation of Ohio Appellate Judge Matthew Byrne as a federal judge: The left-wing Alliance for Justice published these comments in their screed against Judge Byrne: “In his campaign videos and materials for the Ohio Court of Appeals, Byrne repeatedly emphasized his anti-choice [anti-abortion] credentials. Byrne has been actively engaged in anti-choice advocacy throughout his life, including through donations to anti-choice organizations, attendance at banquets and policy events sponsored by groups such as Cincinnati Right to Life, Warren County Right to Life and LIFE Pregnancy Center.

“Byrne has volunteered for the anti-choice organization at his Catholic parish and even included a prayer for the unborn at his wedding. Byrne also served as a member of the advisory board (and as a speaker and member of several key committees) at the Pregnancy Center East, an anti-choice pregnancy crisis center in Ohio,” the abortion advocacy group wrote.

And it goes on and on with his pro-life credentials. The AfJ even complains that Judge Byrne “has … indicated it was a ‘biological, scientific reality’ that an unborn child is biologically human at every stage of his or her biological development, beginning at fertilization.” Well, yes. What other species would a developing human baby represent?

If any of President Trump’s judicial nominees is worthy of active support from the pro-life community – as many of them are! – it seems to us Matthew Byrne is such a nominee. Senators can be contacted at 202/224-3121. This nomination is likely to go through a hot debate. We will, of course, let our readers know how it turns out and how the Senators vote.

Nuggets

• IDAHO ATTORNEY GENERAL RAUL LABRADOR IS APPEALING to the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals an Idaho-based federal district court ruling, reports Alliance Defending Freedom, that, based somehow on the US Constitution, “Idaho can’t enforce its democratically enacted laws to protect unborn babies and their mothers. … The district court’s ruling blows a hole,” writes ADF, “in Idaho’s protection for Life by allowing abortion doctors to decide – in their personal judgment – what maternal health risks are sufficient to terminate a baby. The district court even intimated,” notes the pro-life legal team, “that risk of a C-section would justify an abortion. The ruling also permits essentially any professed concerns about mental health issues to allow for abortion, despite abortion not treating the cause of any mental health problem.” Said ADF senior counsel John Bursch in the news announcement, “‘Nothing in the federal Constitution grants a right to take innocent, unborn life.’” ADF and the state attorney general have filed an emergency motion for a stay of the district court’s outrageous order, pending the 9^th Circuit’s action on the appeal. LifeSiteNews writer Calvin Freiburger reports that the district judge, B. Lynn Winmill “has narrowed his ruling against Idaho’s abortion ban so that it only empowers the specific abortionist who brought the suit to circumvent [the law], allowing the state to continue enforcing the pro-life law against everyone else.” Is that how we fashion the application of laws in the United States? The lawsuit could become moot, meanwhile, if voters in November endorse an initiative to, writes Mr. Freiburger, “codify a ‘right to reproductive freedom and privacy, which is the right to make personal decisions about [so-called] reproductive healthcare that directly impact the person’s own body,’ expressly including abortion.”

• PENNSYLVANIA’s GOVERNOR JOSH SHAPIRO (D), reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “is moving to update the state’s health code by replacing terms denoting females with gender-neutral language … . The Daily Wire reports that the governor’s proposed updates, which span more than 500 pages, replace instances of ‘woman’ with ‘individual’ and refer to new mothers as ‘postpartum individuals,’ ostensibly to leave room to recognize the ultimately fictional concept of ‘pregnant men’ … . ‘Somehow in the midst of hundreds of pages of new government mandates, the department also found it necessary to erase words like “pregnant woman” and “mother” in the regulations and replace them with terms like “pregnant individual,”’ responded Republican State Sen. Michele Brooks,” quoted by Mr. Freiburger.

• PLANNED PARENTHOOD HAS RELEASED “a 14-point plan,” warns Zachary Mettler for Focus on the Family’s Daily Citizen, “directing Democrat state attorneys general to target pro-life pregnancy resource centers and promote abortion.” The plan was published on July 12, 2022, and sent, notes Mr. Mettler, “to the Democratic Attorneys General Assn.” by Planned Parenthood Action Fund. “In the months after the memo was sent,” writes Mr. Mettler, “the attorneys general of Minnesota, New Jersey and California all acted against pregnancy centers, acceding to Planned Parenthood’s request, the Daily Signal California Attorney General Rob Bonta [D] also led a coalition of 15 other attorneys general in issuing an open letter against pregnancy resource centers.” AG Bonta is currently challenging a network of pregnancy centers in California’s court system on their furnishing of abortion-reversal drugs to mothers who seek to interrupt abortions.

• S. DISTRICT JUDGE REED O’CONNOR HAS GRANTED A DELAY until December, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, in a lawsuit filed last December by the attorneys general of Florida (James Uthmeier) and Texas (Ken Paxton) challenging the original approval of the abortion drug mifepristone in the late days of the Clinton Regime. That ensures, notes Mr. Freiburger, “it will not be a factor in this fall’s midterm congressional elections. … At the same time,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “[Judge Reed O’Connor] rejected a bid by mifepristone manufacturer GenBioPro and distributor Danco Laboratories to dismiss the case entirely.”

• THE STATE OF ILLINOIS HAS AGREED TO HOLD OFF – for now – from forcing the plaintiffs of a lawsuit challenging its new abetted suicide law to abide by the law’s provisions. The temporary reprieve follows a federal court order, notes the Thomas More Society (TMS), “temporarily enjoining [the state] from enforcing its new … law against Catholic hospitals under the authority of the Most Reverend Thomas John Paprocki, bishop of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, the Lutheran Care Center and four Illinois physicians while their federal lawsuit moves forward.” The pro bono law firm filed suit on behalf of these plaintiffs on Aug. 11, TMS notes, “asking a federal court to block the ‘End of Life Options’ Act before it takes effect on Sept. 12.” We are guessing Sept. 12 will begin open season on medical providers who are not plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Prayers are in order.

• A MASSIVE PRO-LIFE WALK/RUN RELAY began on Sept. 4 and will carry on through Oct. 25, with relay participants, “known,” notes Emily Mangiaracina in LifeSiteNews, “as LIFE Runners, wear[ing] shirts nudging onlookers to ‘Remember the Unborn’ as they walk or run 5K legs on the relay course, which spans the continental US – or from anywhere in the world. The [planned] launch points for the relay course kick off from the west and east coasts in SanFrancisco and New York City, and from the north and south in Fargo, North Dakota, and Austin, Texas, triggering a relay timed to converge at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, on Sunday, Oct. 25. LIFE Runners will then,” writes Ms. Mangiaracina, “walk or run the final mile to St. Benedict’s Abbey. Meanwhile, other pro-lifers will run, walk or simply wear their pro-life witness in their own neighborhoods, on their own time, from Sept. 4 to Oct. 25. Readers can register for the relay for free,” notes LifeSiteNews, “choosing their own 5K leg, using the promo code LIFER at https://relay.liferunners.org. …Dr. Pat Castle, former Air Force lieutenant colonel and founder of LIFE Runners, told LifeSiteNews that a 2023 study found that 60% of abortion-minded mothers would choose life if they encountered just one ‘supportive person or encouraging message.’ … The relay launch points were purposefully chosen, he explained, to maximize the chance of saving babies by witnessing to secular, liberal areas where women are more likely to choose to abort their children. ‘They’re going to places where the message needs to be heard,’ Castle said,” quoted by Ms. Mangiaracina.

• THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND @ BALTIMORE (UMB) IS OFFERING students a $4,000 stipend for abortion training, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews. The enticement comes through a tax-funded “‘Reproductive Health Fellowship,’” he notes, and it covers “a six-week program for licensed clinicians to ‘gain in-depth knowledge and skills for medication abortion, patient counseling and managing post-abortion care,’ aided,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “by ‘experienced faculty and leading professionals in the field,’ plus post-program mentorships.” It is, of course, “subsidized by state taxpayers through the Maryland Dept. of Health.” In 2024, the program used $10.6 million to train “just 17 clinicians to completion in 2024, according to state records, with an additional 38 eligible applicants in 2025.”

• “A FORMER PLANNED PARENTHOOD EXECUTIVE is suing Planned Parenthood Great Rivers for firing her,” reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “allegedly because she anonymously reported an illegal late-term abortion” at an abortion shop in Fairview Heights, Illinois. The abortion was committed against a baby who had developed to 28 weeks, and it was done outside normal operating hours. This reportedly took place in 2022, notes Mr. Freiburger, “and [the plaintiff] discovered and reported it in July 2024, according to her wrongful termination suit. She says she was reprimanded, just two weeks after the report, for ‘insubordination and dishonesty’ and fired less than five months later.” Mr. Freiburger widened his report to include: “Illinois continued to supply more abortions to out-of-state visitors than any other state in 2025, according to data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.”

Warning

Aug. 31, 2026, Family Research Council commentary by Chantel Hoyt for The Washington Stand

             Last week, Sen. Bill Cassidy* (R-LA), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee, released a new report, “Mifepristone Without Guardrails: An Investigation into How Chemical Abortion Drug Makers Are Putting Mothers & Babies at Risk.” The report follows months of investigation by the committee into the business practices of the three companies that manufacture mifepristone, the first drug taken in the chemical abortion regimen, often referred to as “the abortion pill.” The report confirms what many in the pro-life movement had already suspected – mifepristone manufacturers are contributing to the current abortion drug crisis happening in our country by failing to follow their obligations under FDA regulations. This shouldn’t come as a big surprise, but several findings in the report are notable.

             For background, the three manufacturers (or “sponsors,” as the report refers to them) currently approved by the FDA to market mifepristone for abortion are Danco Laboratories LLC, GenBioPro Inc. (GBP) and Evita Solutions LLC. Mifepristone is subject to a drug safety program called Risk Evaluation & Mitigation Strategies (REMS) meant to safeguard against potential serious side effects. The REMS include requirements for the sponsors of a drug as well as the prescribers. Under the program, prescribers must undergo a training and enrollment process to become certified to prescribe mifepristone.

             One of the requirements for the sponsors of mifepristone under the REMS is that they ensure that those who prescribe their mifepristone are properly certified and that they decertify any prescriber not following the certification requirements. To become certified, a healthcare provider must sign a Prescriber Agreement Form stating that they have the ability to (1) accurately assess the unborn child’s gestational age, (2) diagnose ectopic pregnancies, (3) perform surgery if needed in the case of incomplete abortion or severe bleeding, or to have plans to provide this care through others, and (4) ensure patients have access to medical facilities providing blood transfusions and resuscitation if necessary.

             It’s no secret that mifepristone is being shipped through the mail at an alarming rate, and women often have no meaningful contact with a doctor at all, let alone one who is fulfilling the above requirements. As the report notes, Dr. Christina Francis, CEO of the American Assn. of Pro-Life OB/Gyns (AAPLOG), released a video exposing this very reality. In the video, Dr. Francis orders mifepristone from Aid Access, an online abortion drug seller. She states that she is 13 years old, has an intrauterine device, takes blood pressure and blood-thinning medication, had three caesarean sections and had an ectopic pregnancy. Such health issues would put a woman at risk of serious (possibly life-threatening) complications from a mifepristone abortion. However, Dr. Francis received an e-mail within two minutes letting her know that she would be prescribed the pills once they got confirmation of payment.

             According to AAPLOG, Dr. Francis received generic mifepristone from GenBioPro within one week. How can a prescriber be expected to assess the child’s gestational age accurately, diagnose an ectopic pregnancy or ensure the patient has access to follow-up care in this scenario?

             As the report notes, either the prescriber in this situation is properly certified by the FDA to prescribe mifepristone but they did not follow the requirements laid out in the REMS, or they are not a certified prescriber at all, making the prescribing and dispensing itself in violation of the REMS. Either way, FDA regulations are being violated.

             It seems that Aid Access would be a prime candidate for decertification under the REMS, but when Sen. Cassidy asked the mifepristone sponsors to provide a list of prescribers that have been decertified, each company reported that they had never decertified a single prescriber of mifepristone. Not one.

             Cassidy asked the sponsors how they ensure that their certified prescribers are complying with FDA regulations. They did not provide an answer, but GenBioPro indicated that it is the certified prescriber’s responsibility to ensure compliance with the REMS. As the report says, “In other words, the onus is on the certified prescribers to police themselves, not the mifepristone sponsor.”

             The report also notes that both Danco and GenBioPro have links on their websites directing consumers to third-party websites to help them find a mifepristone prescriber. Each of their lists includes sellers that market the drugs to women beyond the FDA-approved limit of 10 weeks of pregnancy. When Cassidy and the committee asked the drug sponsors why they point people to sites that advertise use of mifepristone beyond the FDA’s limit, both Danco and GenBioPro “sought to disclaim any responsibility.”

             As the report notes, “While it may not violate any law or regulation for Danco and GBP to list those third-party websites on their own websites, it raises the question of whether the two sponsors are indifferent to whether their drugs are actually prescribed as approved by FDA and in compliance with state laws.”

             According to AAPLOG, up to 8% of women will require surgical completion of their abortion and this percentage is “much higher” beyond 10 weeks. Women across the country are undoubtedly experiencing serious complications from mifepristone and the lack of medical oversight, but due to a 2016 change under the Obama Administration, there is no longer a requirement for certified prescribers to report non-fatal adverse events from mifepristone to the drug sponsor. This 2016 change also eliminated a previous requirement that prescribers dispense mifepristone in person. Now, certified prescribers are only required to report deaths.*

             … As the report points out, Danco and GenBioPro have claimed in court documents that reporting non-fatal adverse events is unnecessary, but they have also pointed to the lack of data as justification for the FDA’s move to eliminate the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone. The US Court of Appeals for the 5^th Circuit described this reasoning as a “deeply troubling” “ostrich’s-head-in-the-sand approach.” …

             Some might conclude … that the FDA simply needs more stringent regulations when it comes to sponsors and prescribers of mifepristone, but they’re missing the point. While a reinstatement of the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone would be a start, it is by no means sufficient. More stringent regulations may reduce the harms to women and babies, but it would not eliminate them. A drug as dangerous as mifepristone that would require such stringent and complex regulations just to keep women from dying or being rushed to the emergency room should not be on the market.

             A drug that is approved for the sole purpose of ending human life in the womb should have never been approved in the first place.   …

*Life Advocacy Briefing editor’s note: When these drugs can be ordered over the Internet, with no actual in-person interaction between “prescriber” and customer, how can these “certified prescribers” even know the ultimate fate of their customer? Drug shipped, hands washed. Next customer.

Further editor’s note: We note with deep appreciation for his conscientious service that Sen. Bill Cassidy is in the last months of his distinguished service in the United States Senate. We are grateful that he is taking these final months to uncover the truth behind the marketing of a deadly drug whose sole purpose is to starve developing babies to death. We thank him for the prodigious report he is leaving behind and urge his colleagues and the FDA to take seriously the nightmare Sen. Cassidy has assiduously uncovered. Those readers who wish to express thanks can reach his office by calling 202/224-5824 or sending an e-mail through his website at cassidy.senate.gov/contact.

Wisdom from America’s Pro-Life President

WE CONTINUE a morsel each week from a message written by Pres. Ronald Reagan and published in National Right to Life News on Oct. 11, 1984: The Unborn’s Transcendent Right to Life: A Personal Letter to the Pro-Life Movement from Pres. Ronald Reagan

             Recently, some of our political opponents have tried to further their cause by belatedly assuming the mantle of traditional family values. They talk about family, about concern for less fortunate Americans. And they portray themselves as the “party of compassion.” But where are those high-minded ideals when it comes to the issue of abortion?