U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to hold hearing on protecting pain-capable unborn children

On Tuesday Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) will lead a hearing on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (S. 160).

Since 2010, National Right to Life and its state affiliates have led the effort to protect pain-capable unborn children, starting with enactment of model legislation in Nebraska. Sixteen states have enacted the National Right to Life model legislation, and the law is currently in effect in 15. The legislation has previously passed the U.S. House of Representatives and has garnered a majority of votes in the U.S. Senate.

National Right to Life President Carol Tobias said, “We are proud to stand with our pro-life ally, Sen. Graham, in encouraging the Senate to protect pain-capable unborn children. One-fourth of premature infants now survive when born at this stage – and there is strong evidence that were a child to be aborted at that stage, they would experience great pain, as they are torn limb from limb in late abortions.”

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act continues to be one of the right-to-life movement’s top congressional priorities for the 116th Congress. Like the state bills, the proposed federal law would generally extend legal protection to unborn humans beginning at 20 weeks fetal age (22 weeks of pregnancy), based on congressional findings that by that point (and even earlier) the unborn child has the capacity to experience great pain during an abortion.

A February 2019 Marist poll found that 66% of Americans support such legislation.

It is now commonplace to read about evidence that, by 20 weeks fetal age and even earlier, an unborn child responds to many forms of stimuli, including music and the mother’s voice. Claims that the same child is nevertheless insensible to the violence done to her body during an abortion should engender strong skepticism.

Abortions at this stage are performed using a variety of techniques, but most often by a method in which the unborn child’s arms and legs are twisted off by brute manual force, using a long stainless steel clamping tool. A medical illustration of this common method is posted here: www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/deabortiongraphic

Some of the extensive scientific evidence that unborn children have the capacity to experience pain, at least by 20 weeks, is available online:

www.doctorsonfetalpain.com
www.doctorsonfetalpain.com
www.nrlc.org/uploads/fetalpain/AnandPainReport.pdf

Click here for more from NRL News Today.

VIDEO: Planned Parenthood admits that woman are pregnant with “babies”

In the section at Clinic Quotes titled “Abortion Counseling,” you can read stories from former Planned Parenthood workers and former Planned Parenthood patients talking about how PP denies that a pregnant woman is carrying a “baby.”

Instead, they use words like “products of conception” or “fetal tissue.”

But in a video on YouTube aimed at teaching children about sex, PP admits they knew it was a baby all along. The video narrator says:

“With younger children you can keep it simple and direct. For example, you can say “A baby grows in a parent’s belly and comes out of their vagina.” That may be all it takes to satisfy their curiosity. If they ask, “How does the baby get in the belly?” You can say something like, “Most women have tiny eggs in a special part of their belly. Most men have very tiny seeds, called sperm. If sperm and egg meet they can grow into a baby.”

Planned Parenthood video “How Do I Talk With My Kid About Where Babies Come From?” Visited December 18, 2018.

Click here for the video.

Click here for more from NRL News Today.

News From Around the Nation

Texas

Texas is one step closer to eliminating taxpayer-funded abortions. On Tuesday, the state’s Senate approved Senate Bill 22, its first major anti-abortion bill of the session. Republican Senator Donna Campbell sponsored the legislation, which would ban state and local governments from funding abortion providers. It passed the Senate with a vote of 20-11. The legislation would ban “… a sale, purchase, lease, donation of money, goods, services, or real property, or any other transaction between a governmental entity and a private entity that provides to the private entity something of value derived directly or indirectly from state or local tax revenue, regardless of whether the governmental entity receives something of value in return.”  Click here for more

Oregon

Oregon, the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide in the United States, is now considering further relaxing restrictions on the procedure by waiving waiting periods and expanding the methods of taking the deadly drugs. Two bills currently before the House and Senate, House Bill 2217 and Senate Bill 579, are scheduled for votes soon in their respective houses.  Click here for more

Kentucky

In a 2-1 ruling yesterday, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s ruling that struck down a Kentucky law requiring doctors to show women ultrasounds of their preborn babies and allow them to listen to the fetal heartbeat, prior to an abortion. According to a press release from the Liberty Counsel, “The legislation specifically requires doctors to describe an ultrasound although women can avert their eyes and ask to have the sound turned off…. Physicians who fail to attempt to show and describe the unborn baby to the patient could face fines of up to $250,000 and action against their medical license.”  Click here for more

Ohio

Women’s Med Center, home abortionist Martin Haskell, who pioneered the gruesome — and now illegal — partial-birth abortion procedure, may finally close forever, thanks to a ruling from an Ohio appeals court. The facility, which commits abortions even in the third trimester of pregnancy, failed to meet state licensing regulations, which require either admitting privileges or a transfer agreement with a local hospital. Thanks to the ruling from the appeals court, the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) is now free to revoke the facility’s license.  Click here for more

Michigan

Northland Family Planning in Southfield, Michigan, called 911 for a patient emergency requiring an ambulance on March 26th — for the fifth time in just six months. According to Operation Rescue, this latest 911 call from Northland Family Planning involved a patient who can be heard crying in pain in the background. During the abortion, a hole was torn in her uterus (perforation), which is a complication of legal abortion. She also suffered from a collapsed lung. According to her patient records, she was undergoing a D&C abortion, which involves dilating the cervix and scraping the fragile and thin uterine walls to destroy the developing preborn child; it may also involve powerful suction to remove the baby and other uterine material. Click here for more

Arkansas

Senate Bill 278 is now on its way to the desk of pro-life Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a comprehensive measure that increases the reflection period for an abortion-minded woman from 48 to 72 hours, requires abortion clinics to report abortions that result in live births, and have equipment on hand in case there is an emergency. SB 278 passed the Senate Thursday by a vote of 29-5. Without debate, the House passed the bill on Tuesday 75-13.  Click here for more

Colorado

Late yesterday, Operation Rescue obtained 911 records that revealed shocking details of a medical emergency that took place on April 2, 2019, at Warren Hern's notorious Boulder Abortion Clinic.  According to the records, a doctor at the Boulder Abortion Clinic bypassed the 911 exchange and directly called American Medical Response (AMR) requesting an urgent response for an 18-year old female who was 33 weeks pregnant.  Click here for more

Sens. Mike Rounds and James Lankford introduce ban on dismemberment abortion in U.S. Senate

Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) introduced the Dismemberment Abortion Ban Act yesterday.

This vital pro-life legislation would prohibit the performance of dismemberment abortion. The legislation is based on a model state bill proposed by National Right to Life, which has been enacted in Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virginia. Enactment is pending gubernatorial signature in Indiana and North Dakota, and more states are expected to consider this high priority legislation in 2019..

The Dismemberment Abortion Ban Act defines “dismemberment abortion” as “knowingly dismembering a living unborn child and extracting such unborn child one piece at a time from the uterus through the use of clamps, grasping forceps, tongs, scissors or similar instruments that, through the convergence of two rigid levers, slice, crush or grasp a portion of the unborn child’s body in order to cut or rip it off . . .”

This definition largely overlaps with what those in the abortion trade currently refer to as “dilation and evacuation” or “dilation and extraction” (D&E) abortions. The method is commonly used starting at about 14 weeks of pregnancy and extending into the third trimester.

The Dismemberment Abortion Ban Act allows performance of a dismemberment abortion if necessary to save a mother’s life. The bill also says that it does not limit abortions performed in cases of rape or incest, if performed by a method other than dismemberment abortion.

Click here for more from NRL News Today.

Number of signatures on Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (H.R. 962) Discharge Petition up to 198

This was reported by someone who was in the House gallery on Tuesday as Members, one by one, came up and signed a discharge petition to liberate the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (H.R. 962 ) from the clutches of pro-abortion-to-the-maximum Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.).

Some needed context.

First, Pelosi, who is loopy enough on her own, is being egged on by extremist new members of the Democratic caucus who are so radical they make her seem positively middle of the road by comparison.

Second, Pelosi is attempting to intimidate those members of her caucus who are nervous about being (correctly) labeled as, at best, soft on infanticide, at worst active supporters of standing by and watching abortion survivors die.

I’m told Pelosi screamed at one female member of the Democratic caucus. There is no reason to believe this is not 100% accurate.

It’s one thing for Democratic men to jump ship. Pelosi will go after them in her usual cutthroat manner.

But Democratic females? You can just imagine the heat Pelosi is putting on them.

The number needed to force a vote on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act is 218, a majority of the House. There were 193 signatures on Tuesday. The number has since risen to 198.

Members have asked for the House to consider H.R. 962 on every legislative day since the bill’s introduction. 28 of the 29 requests have been for unanimous consent.

Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) offered an unanimous consent request today. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said he had no plans to schedule H.R. 962 for a vote on the House floor.

Click here to contact your Representatives.

Click here for more from NRL News Today.

The wealthiest man in the world was born to a high school teenage mother

Many know about the story of how Apple founder Steve Jobs was born to an unwed college student and was placed with an adoptive family. But not many know the story of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who, though now a household name, also came from less than glamorous beginnings. Bezos’ mother was a teenager when she got pregnant, and had she been pushed to have an abortion, none of the things Bezos has built and accomplished would exist. Bezos left a lucrative job on Wall Street to found Amazon — a decision that made him the richest man in the world.

In 1964, Jacklyn Gise, just 16 years old, got pregnant. She had to battle the forces that worked against high school students who face teenage pregnancies — except that she, unlike many other teenage mothers, had the support of her parents. Bezos credits his family for this support, which continued into his childhood, and which he says gave him the ability to take the risks he has.

Click here for more from Live Action News.

Woman pretends to seek late-term abortion to prove abortions are done on healthy babies

Last month, pro-lifer Jamie Forbes made an undercover phone call to prove how easy it is to schedule a late-term abortion for non-health reasons, contacting Southwestern Women’s Options, a notorious abortion facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which allowed her to schedule an abortion at 32 weeks.

Now, Jamie is back with more videos of phone calls to show that abortion facilities don’t really care what the reason is for a woman’s late-term abortion. In other words, it doesn’t have to be for “health” reasons — and this practice of late-term abortions for any reason whatsoever isn’t limited to New Mexico.

Click here for the videos of the phone calls.

Click here for more from Live Action News.

Pro-Choice activist admits abortion “takes life”

From pro-choice Alexander Sanger, grandson of Margaret Sanger, and International Planned Parenthood Council Chair:

“While abortion opponents argue that the taking of human life is prima facie is evidence that abortion does not serve a biological purpose, I would argue otherwise… While abortion takes life, it enables life to reproduce itself successfully, not a nature’s terms but on human terms. The unborn child is not just an innocent life. While it is the epitome of human destiny and the greatest potential joy that humanity can create, it is also a liability, a threat, and a danger to the mother and to the other members of its family. In order to survive, humanity has necessarily taken preborn life to preserve other life all throughout its evolutionary history.”

Alexander Sanger, Beyond Choice: Reproductive Freedom in the 21st Century (New York: Public Affairs, 2004), p. 261.

Click here for more from NRL News Today.

Casten works to remove predecessor Henry Hyde's prolife funding protection

Seven of Illinois' Democrat members of the U.S. House signed on last month to a measure that would destroy the prolife legacy of the late Congressman Henry Hyde (IL). In addition, Illinois' junior U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth helped introduce the EACH Woman Act that would force taxpayer funding of abortions on low income women with Medicaid health coverage.

Pro-abortion Democrat Sean Casten now represents Illinois 6th Congressional District that Hyde represented from 1975 to his retirement in 2007, the same year he passed away. Casten's stinging rebuke of Hyde in his press release boasting the intention of the EACH Woman Act said, "The Hyde Amendment – named after anti-choice ideologue Henry Hyde who formerly represented the 6th District – has, since 1976, blocked the use of federal funding for abortion services."

Click here for more from Illinois Review.

Rep. Mike Conaway introduces first-of-its-kind legislation in U.S. House Abortion Pill Reversal protocol saves lives

The National Right to Life Committee praised Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) for his introduction late yesterday of the Second Chance at Life Act of 2019. This protective legislation, based on a model developed by National Right to Life, will require that a woman be informed that the effects of the chemical abortion pill can potentially be reversed in order to save her baby, if she changes her mind after taking the first of two drugs.

Seven states have enacted this legislation: Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah.

“Over 500 babies have been saved by the abortion pill reversal protocol,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “We applaud Rep. Mike Conaway for leading the charge to empower women with the information that chemical abortions can be reversed and that their unborn children can be saved.”

The number of chemical abortions is increasing. The percentage of “early medical abortions” (the CDC’s designation for nonsurgical chemical abortions at or earlier than eight weeks gestation) in the last ten years has risen from 11.3% in 2006 to 24.2% in 2015.

High numbers of chemical abortions are why nearly two-thirds (65.4%) of abortions are now performed at eight-weeks’ gestation or earlier.

Click here for more from NRL News Today.

U.S. House Members line up to sign discharge petition on Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act

Thanks to the efforts of Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), members of the U.S. House of Representatives today were able to begin signing a discharge petition on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act. The discharge petition is a tool that the minority can use to circumvent pro-abortion leadership who is blocking a vote on this bill.

Led by Republican Whip Steve Scalise and Rep. Ann Wagner, members of the U.S. House of Representatives today lined up on the House floor to begin signing a discharge petition on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act to the House floor. If the petition is signed by a majority of House members, it would force a vote on the House floor. If enacted, the bill would extend federal legal protection to babies who are born alive during an abortion.

The discharge petition can remain open an entire congress. Once it reaches a simple majority of signatures (218), the bill can come for a vote. 21 Democrats must join Republicans. Today’s effort was the first step in the battle to reach the crucial 218 number of signatures.

If your Representative’s name is not on the list, urge him/her to sign on. Get your family members, neighbors and friends to do the same.

Click here to find your Representative's Contact Information.  Use the tool in the upper right-hand corner, just enter your zip code.

Click here for more from NRL News Today.

Abortionist’s Unethical Study Will Have Women Abort Twice to Disprove Abortion Pill Reversal

Definitively derided as “unscientific” by abortion fanatics the world over, Abortion Pill Reversal is now being put to the test in an unconscionable new study which promises 40 women an abortion by the project’s end.

Orchestrated by California abortionist Mitchell Creinin, the study sets out to determine whether the reversal protocol is actually as ineffective as Creinin insists. His goal is to create a “formal study that can be definitive.”

“I want to own that,” he told NPR in an article published last week.

Ownership of that study would, of course, be a top priority for a man with some skin in the game, since Creinin, as it turns out, is compensated by the very lab that distributes the chemical abortion pill, mifepristone, across the United States.

Click here for more from Pregnancy Help News.

Supreme Court allows PPFA’s legal onslaught against David Daleiden to continue

The United States Supreme Court today declined to hear an appeal by the Center for Medical Progress of a decision by a federal appeals court which rejected CMP’s motion to dismiss Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit against David Daleiden (pictured).

Mr. Daleiden, a citizen journalist and the project lead at The CMP, became nationally known in 2015 when undercover investigators posed as buyers of “fetal tissue” (an umbrella term that includes intact hearts and lungs and pancreas and brains), and asked the kinds of questions someone who is the middleman would ask of the abortion industry.

The product of this 30-month-long “Human Capital” investigation was a lengthy series of videos that documented Planned Parenthood’s unsavory involvement in the procurement and sale of body parts from aborted babies. The CMP videos revealed the participants’ cavalier, flippant attitudes of towards the unborn babies whose body parts they were harvesting.

Planned Parenthood sued him in 2016 claiming among other things fraud, invasion of privacy, and trespassing.

Click here for more from NRL News Today.

Trump Admin Awards $5.1 Million to Group of Pro-life Medical Clinics, Cuts Funding to Planned Parenthood

In a major announcement Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)revealed a multi-million dollar grant for a set of pro-life pregnancy help medical clinics in California.

Over the course of the next three years, the pro-life group, Obria Medical Clinics, will receive a total of $5.1 million in Title X family planning funds.

“With this grant, the administration has opened up a new avenue of health care choices for low income and underserved women and their families in California,” Obria Group Founder and CEO Kathleen Eaton Bravo said in a statement. “Many women want the opportunity to visit a professional, comprehensive health care facility—not an abortion clinic—for their health care needs; today HHS gave women that choice.”

At the same time, HHS is cutting funding to some Planned Parenthood affiliates in five states. Planned Parenthood President Leana Wen bemoaned the decision to slash funding to affiliates in Hawaii, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Virginia, saying, “Planned Parenthood will not let this stand.”

Click here for more from NRL News Today.

Georgia passes pro-life ‘heartbeat bill’, awaits governor’s signature

The Georgia House has voted in favor of HB 481 dubbed the “Heartbeat Bill” in a vote of 92 to 78. The bill will outlaw abortion when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, as early as six weeks gestation.

The bill passed in the Georgia Senate on March 22 before returning to the House with changes. Now it will head to the desk of Gov. Brian Kemp who has said he will sign it.  It, unfortunately, includes exceptions for children conceived in rape or incest who will continue to be at risk of being legally killed up to 20 weeks, as is the current limit for abortions in the state.

Click here for more from Live Action News.

41 states have introduced over 250 pro-life laws since January, Planned Parenthood complains

Planned Parenthood and its former research arm released a new report this week intended to warn their followers about rising threats to so-called “reproductive rights,” but the numbers will just as likely hearten pro-lifers by putting the scope of 2019’s pro-life legislative progress in perspective.

On Wednesday, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and the Guttmacher Institute released a report detailing the number of state-level bills to restrict or ban abortion that have been introduced since the beginning of 2019. According to the abortion giant, bills to ban abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected (which PPAF’s press release describes only as “six-week abortion bans” and bans “before many people know they are pregnant”) have risen by 63 percent compared with last year.

Click here for more from Life Site News.

Judge sides with James Dobson against Obamacare abortifacient mandate

Social conservative leader Dr. James Dobson will not be forced to insure abortion-inducing contraceptives through his nonprofit organization, a federal judge ruled this week.

For five years, Dobson has been fighting the so-called Affordable Care Act’s (better known as Obamacare) mandate for employers to cover abortion-inducing drugs in their insurance plans, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported. He won a temporary injunction in 2014, but the case went on until this week, when U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn issued a permanent injunction on behalf of the El Paso-based Dr. James Dobson Family Institute and “Family Talk” radio show.

Click here for more from Life Site News.

Researchers find Hormonal contraceptives cause abortions

In a review of available scientific literature, three physician-researchers have found evidence that women using hormonal birth control do conceive children, who are then destroyed by the chemicals in an early abortion.

Researchers Donna Harrison, Cara Buskmiller, and Monique Chireau published “Systematic Review of Ovarian Activity and Potential for Embryo Formation and Loss during the Use of Hormonal Contraception” in the January 2019 Linacre Quarterly, a peer-reviewed publication of the Catholic Medical Association. Having examined scientific papers dating back to 1990 that studied the use of hormonal contraception, they found evidence that high levels of estrogen and progestin hormones, which circulate when ovaries produce ova, are accompanied by the conception of embryonic babies who die.

Click here for more from Life Site News.

Twitter suspends pro-life movie “Unplanned” account on opening weekend

Three days after the overtly pro-life film, “Unplanned” hit movie theaters nation wide, and one day after reaching #4 in the Box Office, the film’s official Twitter Handle (@UnplannedMovie) was inexplicably suspended, late Saturday morning.

Conservative voices took to Twitter to condemn the suspension, many claiming the move as “par the course” in the social media giant’s attempt to censor conservative thought.

Click here for more from Life Site News.

Frustrated pro-abortion House Democrat slams Trump Administration as “Abortion Obsessed”

What could any member of a pro-life administration enjoy hearing more than for a dyed in the wool pro-abortion to slam him or her as “abortion obsessed”?

That’s what Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.) told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a Wednesday hearing. “Your administration is abortion-obsessed,” Frankel said at a House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on the State Department’s 2020 budget proposal.

Frankel was referring to Secretary Pompeo’s announcement at a Tuesday press conference where he said the U.S. State Department will refuse to work with any foreign non-governmental organization (NGO) engaged in the abortion business. The State Department will also refuse to fund foreign NGOs that give money to other foreign NGOs engaged in the international abortion industry.

“We will enforce a strict prohibition on backdoor funding schemes and end-runs around our policy,” Secretary Pompeo said. “American taxpayer dollars will not be used to underwrite abortions.”

Click here for more from NRL News Today.