UN Official Criticizes "Liberal Eugenics" in Annual Report

Catalina Devandas Aguilar

Catalina Devandas Aguilar, a Costa Rican Lawyer and United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, recently submitted an annual report criticizing the increased adoption of ideals she describes as "ableism" and "liberal eugenics." In the report, she denounces practices such as euthanasia and abortion targeted at those with disabilities.

Here are some excerpts from the report:

“Indeed, ableist social norms and market pressures make it imperative to have the ‘best possible child’ with the best possible chances at life. Some utilitarian bioethicists have further argued that genetic enhancement is a moral obligation and that it is ethical to give parents the option to euthanize their newborns with disabilities.”

“Such practices may reinforce and socially validate the message that persons with disabilities ought not to have been born. Legislative frameworks that extend the time frame for a lawful abortion or, exceptionally, permit abortion in the presence of fetal impairment aggravate this message.

“In addition, as the consequence is a smaller number of persons with disabilities being born, some fear a reduction in disability advocacy and social support for persons with disabilities. Furthermore, health policies and abortion laws that perpetuate deep-rooted stereotypes and stigma against persons with disabilities also undermine women’s reproductive autonomy and choice.”

“From a disability rights perspective, there is a grave concern that legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide could put at risk the lives of persons with disabilities. If assisted dying is made available for all persons with a health condition or impairment, regardless of whether they are terminally ill or not, a social assumption might follow that it is better to be dead than to live with a disability.”

Click here to read her full report.

Tennessee AG Appeals District Court Judge's Decision Ruling Against Temporary Abortion Ban

Tennessee officials hope to overturn a District Court's ruling which could reinstate abortion as an essential service in the state during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Bernard A. Friedman ruled against Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s Executive Order temporarily banning medical procedures not required “to provide life-sustaining treatment, to prevent death or risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function, or to prevent rapid deterioration or serious adverse consequences to a patient’s physical condition.” This included elective surgical abortions, but Judge Friedman's ruling could prevent it from being enforced against abortionists.

Shortly after Friedman's decision, the Tennessee Attorney General's office appealed the ruling and asked Friedman to delay it from taking effect until after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals can review the case. The Tennessee government is hoping that it can prevent abortionists in the state from using valuable personal protective equipment such as medical masks and gloves to make sure they are available for doctors treating patients with COVID-19. Temporarily halting elective surgical abortions also prevents patients and abortion clinic workers from spreading COVID-19 in the cramped spaces of abortion clinics.

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Trump Administration Issues Guidelines Against Discriminatory Healthcare Rationing

A Civil Rights Bulletin issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) gives guidance to "state, local, tribal, and territorial partners" and recommends lead health care providers against discriminatory health care rationing.

An excerpt from the guidelines states:

"Make medical treatment decisions, including denials of care under Crisis Standards of Care and allocation of ventilators, after an individualized consideration of each person, free from stereotypes and biases, including generalizations and judgments about the individual’s quality of life or relative value to society, based on the individual’s disability, age, race, income level, or any protected basis. This individualized consideration should be based on current objective medical evidence and the expressed views of the patients themselves as opposed to unfounded assumptions."

National Right to Life thanked the Trump administration for writing these guidelines. “Our health care system is designed to save lives,” National Right to Life president Carol Tobias commented. “No one facing the serious health issues from a coronavirus diagnosis should worry about whether they will receive the care they need because of their age or disability.”

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Michigan Gov. Claims Abortions are "Life-Sustaining"

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
Photo Credit: Michigan Municipal League / Flickr

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer made headlines last week for her characterization of abortion after pro-life legislators asked her to suspend elective abortions to help fight COVID-19 and apply her executive order suspending elective surgeries equally.

“We stopped elective surgeries here in Michigan. Some people have tried to say that that type of a procedure is considered the same and that’s ridiculous,” the governor said. “A woman’s healthcare, her whole future, her ability to decide if and when she starts a family is not an election [she may have meant elective], it is a fundamental to her life. It is life-sustaining and it’s something that government should not be getting in the middle of.”

Gov. Whitmer has been criticized for enacting heavy restrictions on activities in her state, so her characterization of abortion seems especially strange. Why is it that allowing citizens to buy plants and seeds at grocery stores is dangerous, but elective abortion surgeries are not? Her stance appears to value partisan values over public safety, and she is willing to appear hypocritical to defend it.

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Man Arrested in Decatur for Assaulting Pregnant Ex-Girlfriend in Attempt to Kill their Unborn Child

Adrian Batts
Photo Credit: Macon County State's Attorney

Decatur Police arrested Adrian E. Batts on multiple charges after responding to a battery report on April 8. He reportedly broke into his pregnant ex-girlfriend's home, threw their 9-month-old son several feet onto a bed, and repeatedly kicked her in the stomach in an attempt to kill their unborn child.

Batts reportedly kicked in the door at his ex-girlfriend's residence and searched around the house to find his ex-girlfriend, who was hiding in a closet. Once he found her, reports say that he began beating her repeatedly in the head and stomach.

At some point, the victim reportedly got away from him long enough to check on their crying 9-month-old son, but her ex-boyfriend followed. Batts is accused of throwing the baby several feet onto a nearby bed before kicking his ex-girlfriend repeatedly in the stomach. The victim says that Batts didn't want another child and told her that he hoped to kill their unborn child.

Police arrested Batts on charges of home invasion, aggravated battery of a pregnant woman, domestic battery with priors, endangering the life/health of a child, aggravated fleeing/eluding police, aggravated DUI, and felony revoked.

The police report says that the 9-month-old son is unharmed, but does not disclose the condition of the unborn child.

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Elizabeth Warren Asks FDA to Stop Enforcing Abortion Pill Restrictions During Pandemic

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren
Credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr

Senators Elizabeth Warren, Patty Murray, and Tammy Baldwin called on FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn Tuesday to use enforcement discretion to look the other way if abortion providers attempt to skirt abortion pill regulations during the COVID-19 outbreak.

“People who need an abortion cannot delay care and should not needlessly risk coronavirus exposure,” the senators wrote in their letter (available here). “Given the years of scientific evidence indicating that medication abortion is a safe and effective treatment, we ask that FDA take immediate steps to temporarily exercise enforcement discretion on in-person dispensing requirements, so that people can more easily access abortion care without putting themselves or their healthcare providers at risk of infection from COVID-19.”

The FDA places restrictions on the distribution of the abortion pill regiment so that physicians can check a pregnant woman for conditions such as ectopic pregnancy (a condition in which an unborn child develops outside the uterus). If a woman with an ectopic pregnancy attempts to undergo a DIY abortion using the abortion pill regiment, they are likely to have severe complications such as hemorrhage and death.

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Unsealed Documents Reveal Planned Parenthood Charged Nearly $25,000 Over Two Months for Aborted Body Parts

David Daleiden Speaking at the Pro-Life Summit 2020
Photo Credit: American Life League / Flickr

Several Planned Parenthood invoices were unsealed due to Planned Parenthood's lawsuit with undercover journalist David Daleiden, revealing that over two months in 2012, the abortion giant charged the biospecimen company StemExpress almost $25,000 for fetal tissue and maternal blood samples.

The invoices (available here) show that Planned Parenthood charged $55 per "product of conception" (unit of aborted tissue) and $10 per sample of maternal blood. Three bills are shown. The first, dated Aug. 2, 2012, charged $5,860. The second bill, dated Sept. 5, 2012, charged $11,365. The third was dated Sept. 28, 2012, and charged $7,715.

Planned Parenthood could legally seek reimbursement for associated costs (such as transportation) when donating fetal tissue, but the invoices charge StemExpress per unit of fetal tissue and don't mention reimbursement anywhere.

David Daleiden says the documents are undeniable proof that Planned Parenthood is profiting from the sale of body parts harvested from aborted babies. He gave a comment to Fox News about the story Wednesday: 

"The federal law against selling aborted fetal organs and tissues in exchange for 'valuable consideration' was enacted to prevent monetary incentives to turn children in the womb into a commodity. The law lays out the unmistakable difference between a researcher reimbursing a clinic for used up PPE, versus StemExpress paying solely for the number of 'usable' body parts it could collect and then sell from Planned Parenthood's abortions.

"Planned Parenthood and StemExpress's business relationship -- sadly not unique to them -- sets quotas for certain types of abortions, treats pregnant women like a cash crop, places a price tag on human beings, and declares that our nation's children are worth more dead than alive," he continued.

Planned Parenthood must be held accountable for its lack of respect for human life and for manipulating women to have their children killed so that it can harvest their body parts and make a profit.

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Illinois Reproductive Health Act Fact 4: Abortionists Could Potentially Provide "Abortion Care" Wherever they Deem Acceptable

There are no longer consequences for abortionists if they attempt to complete abortions in places other than abortion clinics (which are no longer required to be licensed ambulatory surgical treatment centers) or hospitals. With the changes brought by the Illinois Reproductive Health Act, they may be able to commit abortions in literal back alleys if their "professional judgment" deems it acceptable. Read more by clicking the link below:

GET THE FACTS - Click here to view or download this week's fact sheet.

Click here to view or download a PDF of this fact sheet.

Alabama Temporary Abortion Ban Blocked by Federal Judge

District Judge Myron Thompson granted a preliminary injunction against Alabama Governor Kay Ivey's executive order banning medical procedures except for emergencies or procedures required to “avoid serious harm from an underlying condition or disease, or necessary as part of a patient’s ongoing and active treatment.” Alabama correctly considered abortions to be non-essential procedures, but Judge Thompson said that Alabama could not limit abortions in this way.

“... efforts to combat COVID-19 do not outweigh the lasting harm imposed by the denial of an individual’s right to terminate her pregnancy, by an undue burden or increase in risk on patients imposed by a delayed procedure, or by the cloud of unwarranted prosecution against providers,” she wrote on Easter Sunday.

The order was designed to slow the spread of COVID-19 and preserve medical resources for doctors fighting the pandemic.

A similar executive order in Texas has been brought all the way to the Supreme Court and could be decided any day.

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Restraining Order Blocking Oklahoma's Temporary Abortion Ban Upheld by Appeals Court

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's temporary restraining order against Oklahoma's temporary elective abortion ban due to a technicality.

The judges concluded that they could not challenge District Judge Charles Goodwin's action because it was only a temporary restraining order. Temporary restraining orders are meant to block certain government actions from taking effect until after a judge has fully considered the case and come to a decision. In the case of the Oklahoma ban, which was only written to continue until the end of this month, the time Goodwin spends making a decision could essentially block the executive order entirely.

Abortion clinics do not deserve to be the exception to Oklahoma's executive order, which actually bans all elective surgeries and minor medical procedures. Abortion clinics that continue to complete abortions during the COVID-19 outbreak are putting unnecessary additional strain on medical resources such as personal protective equipment which could be used by doctors treating patients with COVID-19.

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Fifth Circuit Ruling Creates Exception for Chemical Abortions in Texas Ban on Non-Essential Medical Procedures

The state of Texas, which has apparently become ground zero for legal battles about states temporarily banning elective abortions during the COVID-19 epidemic, has hit another obstacle. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily blocked part of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order until it makes a decision specifically about whether chemical abortions can be banned via executive order during emergencies.

The ban against surgical abortions still remains in place (unless the mother's pregnancy would exceed Texas's late-term abortion ban of 22 weeks), but women will be able to have chemical abortions by taking the abortion pill regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol at least until the court makes a decision. The first of these suffocates and starves an unborn child of the nutrients that a mother's body normally provides them, and the second induces labor to remove the deceased baby from the mother's womb.

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Planned Parenthood Goes to Supreme Court Seeking Restraining Order Against Texas Temporary Elective Abortion Ban

Planned Parenthood issued an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court asking for a reinstatement of a temporary restraining order against a Texas executive order temporarily banning non-essential abortions during the COVID-19 outbreak. The Supreme Court accepted the appeal and a decision could be made at any time, letting Americans know what stance the highest court will take on this issue.

“The court is unjustifiably forcing women to wait until the 11th hour to get the time-sensitive, essential healthcare that they are constitutionally guaranteed,” Center for Reproductive Rights President and CEO Nancy Northup told the Texas Tribune, adding, “We will pursue all legal options to ensure no women are left behind.”

The executive order technically bans all non-essential medical procedures, including elective abortions. Planned Parenthood is arguing that abortions are an essential service, and is fighting ongoing legal battles against states across the country to receive exceptions from similar rules. The temporary ban on non-essential medical procedures is designed to slow the spread of COVID-19 and preserve essential personal protective equipment for doctors helping fight the virus.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order was originally blocked by federal judge Lee Yeakel, but his decision was quickly overturned in a 2-1 ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The latter ruled that elective abortions could be temporarily banned under a governor's emergency powers unless an unborn child would pass that state's gestational cutoff for late-term abortions (22 weeks in Texas).

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Doctors Deliver Premature Baby of Mother in Induced Coma Fighting COVID-19. Both Survive.

Angela Primachenko
Photo from Instagram

27-year-old Angela Primachenko was 33 weeks pregnant when she tested positive for COVID-19 and was put in a medically-induced coma. Doctors at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center in Washington, rather than performing an abortion on the premature child, induced labor while Primachecko was still in a coma to give both of them the best chance at survival.

“After all the medication and everything I just woke up and all of a sudden, I didn’t have my belly anymore. It was just extremely mind-blowing,” Primachenko said.

Her daughter, whom she named Ava, tested negative for COVID-19 after her premature birth. Ava has been staying in neo-natal intensive care, while her mother was released from the hospital on Saturday.

“Everyone did a standing ovation and just clapped me out of the ICU, which is so amazing and such a huge thing to be able to leave the ICU and go to the floor — it’s just the grace of God,” she said.

Primachenko hopes to be able to hold her daughter soon but has had to keep her distance from Ava to prevent her exposure to COVID-19.

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Undercover Pro-Lifer Finds Websites will Mail Abortion Pills to Women without Meeting a Doctor

Undercover pro-lifer Joe Baca recently found that when he used female aliases on several abortion pill websites, businesses were willing to send him pills and prescriptions without him needing to meet a doctor or verify his identity.

Joe Baca was able to order abortion pills from the websites AbortionRx.com and AidAccess.org, and he shared his experience with Live Action News.

“Neither company required proof of a doctor’s visit or even an ultrasound proving I was pregnant,” he said. “They did nothing to make sure I was not being abused, raped or trafficked. They did absolutely nothing to verify I was an adult beyond asking me how old I was. I simply told them I was born in 1995, but they never asked for an ID.”

“When I asked someone from AbortionRx.com if I needed an ID to prove I was an adult they said, ‘We trust that you are at least 18,'” Baca said. “When I asked if I should go to a doctor after I took the abortion pills, I was highly discouraged. They said that the medical staff would only try to con me into additional charges. When I asked one of these recommended companies what I should do if I bled profusely for several days, they let me know that they were not doctors but I could ‘Google it’ if I was concerned.”

He was able to order the first part of the abortion pill regimen, mifepristone, from AbortionRx.com, and it came packaged in bubble wrap with candy. He received prescriptions for the second part of the abortion pill regimen, misoprostol, from both websites. Mifepristone kills an unborn child by stopping the flow of nutrients from a mother to her child, while misoprostol completes an abortion by causing a woman to go into labor and "complete her miscarriage." Misoprostol is not recommended by the FDA to be used alone to complete abortions, but that is what AbortionRX.com prescribed.

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Pennsylvania Health Department Document Proposes "Point System" Potentially Rationing Health Care for the Disabled

Disability Rights Pennsylvania has filed a civil rights complaint against the Pennsylvania Health Department for a document suggesting that those with disabilities might not receive ventilators during the coronavirus outbreak. The document suggests that healthcare providers use a "point system" biased against those with preexisting conditions and disabilities for accessing these life-saving devices.

The points system specifically prioritizes those with longer life expectancies over those with preexisting conditions.

“Doctors associate certain disabilities with a poor prognosis for long-term survival even though people with disabilities regularly outlive the prognoses that doctors ascribe to them, often by years,” Disability Rights Pennsylvania legal director Kelly Darr wrote in a letter to the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

The letter goes on to suggest the document in its current form could allow physicians to take ventilators away from disabled persons who already use them regularly, “People who are dependent on ventilators should not be at risk of losing their life-preserving equipment if they must go to the hospital. Failure to include such protections in the [guidelines] will discourage such individuals from seeking necessary health care – for COVID-19 or any other issues that may require hospitalization.”

A Pennsylvania Health Department spokesperson gave this response to the criticism: “The interim guidance that was sent to hospitals was a draft that was not meant for further distribution. We will be working with these and additional stakeholders on a final document.”

The fact that the Health Department's response only says that the public wasn't supposed to know about the point system and doesn't suggest that it will be changed doesn't bode well for groups that could be marginalized. The public needs to keep a close eye on the medical system during this time to watch out for discriminatory health care rationing.

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Idaho Joins List of States with "Trigger Laws" Outlawing Abortion if Roe v. Wade is Overturned

Idaho politicians passed a bill last month designed to immediately ban abortions if the Supreme Court overturns the controversial Roe v. Wade decision.

The bill's statement of purpose says the following:

This bill becomes effective when the United States Supreme Court restores to the states their authority to prohibit abortion, or the United States Constitution is amended to restore to the states their authority to prohibit abortion. Upon the occurrence of these prerequisites, this statute makes the performance of an abortion a crime.

The bill has exceptions for cases of rape and incest and will charge abortionists rather than women for the potential crime of abortion. Doctors who commit abortions can potentially lose their licenses if the law does come into effect.

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Appeals Court Upholds Texas's Temporary Elective Abortion Ban

A three-judge panel from the 5th circuit court of appeals voted 2-1 Tuesday to overturn a lower-court judge's ruling which would have blocked the Texas governor's temporary ban on elective abortions during the COVID-19 outbreak.

The executive order prohibits non-essential medical and surgical procedures to conserve resources for the ongoing pandemic. Last week, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals put a temporary stay on federal judge Lee Yeakel’s order blocking Gov. Greg Abbott's ban. On Tuesday, they announced a decision overturning Yeakel's ruling entirely.

From the majority opinion:

"The bottom line is this: when faced with a society-threatening epidemic, a state may implement emergency measures that curtail constitutional rights so long as the measures have at least some “real or substantial relation” to the public health crisis and are not “beyond all question, a plain, palpable invasion of rights secured by the fundamental law.” Courts may ask whether the state’s emergency measures lack basic exceptions for “extreme cases,” and whether the measures are pretextual—that is, arbitrary or oppressive. At the same time, however, courts may not second-guess the wisdom or efficacy of the measures."

A "telephonic preliminary injunction hearing" is scheduled for April 13, when both sides will present additional evidence for the court to consider.

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Illinois Reproductive Health Act Fact 3: Abortion Facilities No Longer Need State “Ambulatory Surgical Treatment Center" Licenses

Abortion clinics are no longer required to be licensed by the state as “Ambulatory Surgical Treatment Centers.” One perk of this is that they will no longer be inspected by the state. Read more about the change by clicking the link below:

GET THE FACTS - Click here to view or download this week's fact sheet.

Click here to view or download a PDF of this fact sheet.

Federal Judge Rules Certain Elective Abortions Can Continue During Oklahoma's Temporary Ban

Oklahoma Attorney General
Mike Hunter

Continuing the trend of federal judges canceling states' temporary elective abortion bans created to fight COVID-19, Judge Charles B. Goodwin ruled that certain elective abortions could continue in Oklahoma despite an executive order temporarily prohibiting elective surgeries.

Goodwin ordered April 8 that the temporary ban on elective surgical abortions “may not be enforced with respect to any patient who will lose her right to lawfully obtain an abortion in Oklahoma.” Additionally, he wrote that the prohibition “on medication abortions may not be enforced.” The court clarified its decision by saying, “while the current public health emergency allows the State of Oklahoma to impose some of the cited measures delaying abortion procedures, it has acted in an ‘unreasonable,’ ‘arbitrary,’ and ‘oppressive’ way – and imposed an ‘undue burden’ on abortion access – in imposing requirements that effectively deny a right of access to abortion.”

Women whose pregnancies will go past the 20-week gestation abortion limit during the temporary ban will be allowed to have abortions through the duration of the ban, which ends April 30.

Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter said his office plans to appeal the decision to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

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World Health Organization Says Abortion is Essential Even During Pandemic

World Health Organization
Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

The World Health Organization is taking the incorrect but predictable position that abortion services are "essential," even during a pandemic.

The World Health Organization, a pro-abortion United Nations entity designed to "direct and coordinate international health within the United Nations system," said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation that “services related to reproductive health are considered to be part of essential services during the COVID-19 outbreak.”

“Women’s choices and rights to sexual and reproductive health care should be respected, irrespective of whether or not she has a suspected or confirmed COVID-19 infection,” WHO said in their statement. This is a misrepresentation of the arguments government officials have been making against providing abortions during this time. The temporary closure mandates in states like Texas were created not to discriminate against those who might have the virus, but to preserve medical equipment and slow the spread of the disease by keeping people from sitting in crowded waiting rooms during this time.

The further said that “sexual and reproductive health care is integral to universal health coverage and achieving the right to health... This includes contraception, quality health care during and after pregnancy and childbirth, and safe abortion to the full extent of the law.” The WHO noted that it provides both global technology and policy guidance to WHO members “on the use of contraception to prevent unintended pregnancy, safe abortion, and treatment of complications from unsafe abortion.”

In the White House's April 7 coronavirus briefing, Donald Trump said that he was open to ending United States funding of the WHO.

“They seem to err always on the side of China and we fund it, so I want to look into it,” the president said.

A reporter challenged Trump's statement, saying, “Is it time to freeze [U.S.] funding to the WHO during a pandemic?”

“No, maybe not,” Trump responded. “I am not saying that I am going to do it, but we are going to look at it. We are going to investigate it, we are going to look into it... but we will look at ending funding because you know what, they called it wrong and if you look back over the years even, they’re very much – everything seems to be very biased towards China – that's not right.”

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