Indiana Abortion Clinic Sues to Overturn Laws Requiring Respectful Treatment of Fetal Remains

Indiana State Capitol
photo credit: J. Stephen Conn / Flickr

The Indianapolis Women's Center in Indiana, along with three anonymous women who claim to be patients, has sued the state of Indiana over laws requiring abortion clinics to treat the bodies of aborted babies with respect.

The lawsuit claims that Indiana fetal disposal laws cause emotional damage to women, and should therefore be overturned.

“These laws also send the unmistakable message that someone who has had an abortion or miscarriage is responsible for the death of a person,” the lawsuit says. “As a result, they have caused many abortion and miscarriage patients, including Jane Doe Nos. 1, 2, and 3, to experience shame, stigma, anguish, and anger.”

Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill successfully defended the same laws in 2019 in front of the Supreme Court when Planned Parenthood challenged them. He says he is confident that, while these challenges may be different in nature, the law will be upheld again.

“We took our fight for Indiana’s law on the disposition of fetal remains all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and we won,” Hill said. “We are now reviewing this latest lawsuit, but I can tell you now that we will once again defend humanity, and I am quite confident that Indiana’s law will continue to stand strong.”

Click here to read more.

Happy New Year from the IFRL!

Indiana AG Finalizes Investigation into Deceased Abortionist who Hoarded 2,000+ Aborted Babies at Illinois Home

Ulrich Klopfer

Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill announced on Wednesday that his department's investigation into deceased abortionist Ulrich Klopfer has finished.

After he died of natural causes on Sept. 3, 2019, Klopfer was found to have hoarded the bodies of 2,411 abortion victims between his home in Will County, Illinois and the trunk of a stored vehicle. When Klopfer's attorney visited the home to go through Klopfer's property, he discovered the bodies and reported his findings to the government officials, who began an investigation.

AG Hill said that his investigation did not find evidence that Klopfer worked with anyone else to collect and transport bodies from the Indiana abortion clinics he worked at to his Illinois home. Because Klopfer is already dead, Hill did not recommend any criminal charges or licensing actions.

While incredibly disturbing, this story did lead to a push across the country for legislation requiring abortion clinics to cremate or bury aborted children.

Klopfer lost his license in 2016 after multiple complaints. The bodies of the aborted children he hoarded were buried in South Bend, Indiana on February 12.

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Reports from Five States Alone Show over 100 Babies Born Alive During Attempted Abortions Since 2008

photo credit: Daiga Ellaby / Unsplash

The pro-abortion movement, when confronted with the idea of legal protection for children born during a failed attempt at abortion, often argue that this never happens. Abortion survivors do exist, however. Information Live Action News gathered from just five states showed that 108 children were born alive after an attempted abortion since 2008.

Live Action accessed reports from Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, and Texas to come to this conclusion. Note that high-population pro-abortion states often don't report these kinds of statistics, so the average number of abortion survivors is likely greater than this data might suggest.

Between the years 2008 and 2020, the data collected by Live Action showed that 37 preborn children from Arizona, 27 from Florida, 12 from Michigan, 19 from Minnesota, and 13 from Texas were born alive after attempted abortions.

A report from the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute cited the CDC for another estimate of abortion survivors, saying:

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that nationwide, between 2003 and 2014 at least 143 babies died after being born alive during botched abortions, though the CDC also states this could be an underestimation."

While some abortion survivors go on to live normal lives, others are left to die; either killed directly by an abortionist after the failed abortion or simply refused medical treatment until they eventually die. The CDC reports that the majority of children who die after surviving an abortion attempt live between 1-4 hours before they pass away.

If you would like to hear directly from abortion survivors, Faces of Choice created a series of short videos in which abortion survivors tell their stories and expose the truth about failed abortions.

Click here to read more from Live Action News.

Planned Parenthood President Says Abortion is a “critically important part of what we do”

In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Planned Parenthood President McGill Johnson broke away from the abortion giant's usual (and false) argument that abortion is only a small percentage of what it does.

“[I]t is still a critically important part of what we do,” she said. “So I think when we say, ‘It’s a small part of what we do,’ what we’re doing is actually stigmatizing it. Like it’s really not a big deal that Planned Parenthood does this. We are a proud abortion provider. We believe that abortion is health care, and we believe, fundamentally, that self-determination begins with being able to control your own body and freedom begins with being able to control your own body. So I don’t like to marginalize it in that way.”

In the past, Planned Parenthood has tried to downplay the number of abortions it does with misleading communication and math. It would say that because Planned Parenthood also provided services such as pregnancy tests and STD testing, it wasn't just an abortion business. In reality, many of these services are simply provided to women as part of a process they go through before they have an abortion.

This shift toward showing pride in killing hundreds of thousands of unborn children each year, rather than trying to cover it up, is quite significant. While pro-abortion activists may have once said that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare," Planned Parenthood is no longer supporting that mantra.

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Argentina Senate Votes to Legalize Abortion

Capitol of Argentina
photo credit: Will Russell / Flickr

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Argentina's Senate voted to legalize abortion up to 14 weeks of pregnancy.

The legislative body debated through Tuesday evening before finally voting 38-29 in favor of legalizing abortion at 4:00 a.m. Before this, abortion was only legal when the mother's life was at risk or in cases of rape.

Argentina President Alberto Fernández has already promised that he will sign the bill into law. He argued that because illegal abortions already occurred, it made sense to legalize abortion. “The debate is not about deciding whether or not there should be abortion,” he said. “Abortions occur in clandestine form, placing at risk the health and lives of the women who submit to them. The dilemma we must overcome is whether abortions are to be clandestine or within the Argentine health system.”

Pro-life activists from Argentina's “Blue Wave” movement are gearing on for what may be a long fight against the intentional killing of unborn children. “We are witnessing a defeat of life. But our convictions do not change,” one pro-life speaker told disappointed activists after the vote. “We are going to make ourselves heard.”

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Report Shows Oregon Hospitals Denied Health Care to People with Disabilities

photo credit: Matthew Perkins / Flickr

Disability rights activists found that hospitals in Oregon have been denied healthcare during the pandemic due to discriminatory policies.

NPR reported on the story of a woman with an intellectual disability who was denied access to a ventilator due to her "low quality of life." She was further asked to sign do-not-resuscitate (DNR) and do-not-intubate orders, and workers from the care home she lived at were asked to write DNRs for all residents living in the care home in advance.

Understandably upset, the care home staffers sought legal help from Disability Rights Oregon (DRO). When DRO threatened to sue the hospital, the patient was moved and put on a ventilator, which allowed her to successfully recover.

“The threat of litigation and the threat of exposing the depth and the whiff of discrimination in our state, I think, was enough to get people to do the right thing,” DRO legal director Emily Cooper told NPR. “But what that meant is you needed to have a lawyer call or you needed to have someone that had the gravitas to push for that.”

State Sen. Sara Gelser, who was contacted during the incident, voiced frustration that the state hasn't taken action to address the issue.

“Nothing happened to that hospital. Nothing happened to that physician,” she told NPR. “The health authority confirmed that, in fact, that was a coerced do-not-intubate order, that they confirmed it happened … but there was no sanction. So there was no remedy. This is immoral. We do not respond to disability discrimination in the way that we should.”

The NPR story uncovered several other instances of people with disabilities being denied healthcare for similar reasons during the pandemic. This should be greatly concerning for pro-life activists, as the denial of healthcare is incredibly similar to euthanasia consent from a patient.

The lives of people with disabilities are greatly devalued when medical institutions discriminate against them based on a supposed "low quality of life." All life is valuable.

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Supreme Court To Decide Whether it Will Hear Arguments on the "Protect Life Rule"

The Supreme Court announced last week that it will consider on Jan. 8 whether it will take up a case to resolve conflicting court rulings on the constitutionality of President Trump's "Protect Life Rule."

The Trump administration's Title X "Protect Life Rule" took several steps to prevent abortion businesses from taking Title X family planning funding. Organizations that accepted funding could no longer commit abortions, refer patients to abortions, or co-locate with organizations that commit abortions. As a result of the rule, Planned Parenthood (which previously received hundreds of millions of dollars through Title X each year) opted out from Title X funding.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a challenge to the rule, but the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals permanently enjoined its enforcement.

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District Judge Grants Temporary Restraining Order Against Arkansas Abortion Laws

After the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals announced on Dec. 16 that it would not be reconsidering its decision to lift U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker's injunction against the enforcement of four pro-life Arkansas laws, Judge Baker has now granted the ACLU a temporary restraining order against those laws.

The four laws ban the practice of dismembering living unborn children, legally protect unborn children who would be aborted simply because they were diagnosed with Down syndrome, require forensic samples to be collected from abortions performed on a minor, and mandate the humane disposal of remains from aborted children.

The restraining order lasts until Jan 5., but the ACLU has already filed a request for a preliminary injunction as part of the ongoing legal battle it is fighting against Arkansas.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge voiced her opinion on Judge Baker's decision in a statement:

“I am disappointed in Judge Baker’s decision to again temporarily block Arkansas laws protecting young girls from predators and sex traffickers, protecting girls from sex-selective abortions, and prohibiting particularly barbaric abortion practices. Arkansas has repeatedly prevailed when it has appealed similar rulings by Judge Baker and will ultimately do so again.”

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After Legislators Refuse to Make Changes, Massachusetts Gov. Vetoes Extreme Abortion Bill

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R)
photo credit: Office of the Governor of Massachusetts / Flickr

UPDATE: The Massachusetts House and Senate voted on Monday and Tuesday respectively to override Gov. Baker's veto. The below story was written before those votes occurred.

The Massachusetts legislature recently pushed to include extreme pro-abortion language in a budget bill. Gov. Charlie Baker (R) line vetoed some of this language last week, essentially separating that legislation into its own bill. On Dec. 22, however, the legislature sent it right back to his desk without changes. Now, Gov. Baker vetoed the bill.

Gov. Baker is pro-abortion, but even he took issue with legislation that expanded late-term abortions and would allow some minors to have abortions without the consent of their parents. 

Explaining his decision, Gov. Baker wrote,

“As I said in my amendment letter I strongly support a woman’s right to access reproductive health care, and many provisions of this bill. However I cannot support the sections of this proposal that expand the availability of later-term abortions and permit minors age 16 and 17 to get an abortion without the consent or knowledge of a parent or guardian.”

There are enough votes in the Massachusetts House and Senate to override the governor's veto.

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5th Circuit Rules Texas and Louisiana can Cut off Medicaid Funding to Planned Parenthood

The full 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Dec. 21 that the states of Texas and Louisiana can cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood clinics. This decision reversed a ruling by a three-judge panel from the 5th Circuit in 2015.

The 2015 decision involved only involved Texas's decision to ban Planned Parenthood from receiving funding from Medicaid. The full 5th Circuit attempted to take the case in 2017, but there were only 14 judges on the court and they reached a 7-7 deadlock.

Since taking office, President Trump has nominated six judges to the court. One of them was recused and another joined too recently to participate in the decision, but the other four all sided with the 11-member majority to allow Texas to enforce its ban. Additionally, the court said that its ruling applies to Louisiana's ban, which can now also be enforced.

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Merry Christmas from the Illinois Federation for Right to Life!

 

University of Pittsburgh used Skin from Scalps of Aborted Children to Study Infection in "Humanized" Mice

Due to the recent controversy surrounding the development and production of some COVID-19 vaccines, pro-life advocates have taken a closer look at how body parts harvested from aborted children are used in research. One disturbing study that was published by the University of Pittsburgh in September used tissue harvested from aborted children to test how the organs of "humanized" mice would respond to staph infection.

Because it is unethical to purposefully infect people with diseases in order to study them, University of Pittsburgh researchers instead obtained "full-thickness human skin," spleens, lymphatic tissue, and other immune system cells harvested from aborted children. The skin was harvested from the backs and scalps of children aborted between the gestational ages of 18 and 20 weeks.

While it may be unethical to purposefully infect others, abortion is also unethical. Two wrongs in this scenario do not make a right.

The pictures below show human hair and skin growing on the backs of mice twelve weeks after the cells from aborted babies were transplanted.

photo from study published on Nature

Pro-life advocate Dr. Stacy Trasancos, Ph.D. wrote for the National Catholic Register about this study as well as two others that involved cells harvested from unborn children. Click here to read more from that article.

Rep. Gabbard Introduces Legislation to Protect Pain-Capable Unborn Children

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI)
photo credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr

U.S. Rep. from Hawaii Tulsi Gabbard (D), in addition to her bill to protect the lives of children who survive attempted abortions, has introduced a bill that would protect pain-capable unborn children from abortion.

Democrats for Life of America thanked Rep. Gabbard on Facebook for introducing a second pro-life bill. “Former Democratic Presidential Candidate Tulsi Gabbard introduced her SECOND Pro-Life bill this week, which would amend Title 18 of the U.S. code to give pain-capable fetuses rights under the law. Tulsi has previously voted against this bill three times, but is now the SPONSOR of the new bill.”

There are times in the past during which Tulsi Gabbard held a 100% pro-abortion voting record, but Gabbard has advocated for some restrictions on abortion, especially during the third trimester.

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Federal Court Allows Arkansas Dismemberment Abortion Ban to Take Effect

photo credit: Bill Oxford / Unsplash

On Dec. 16, the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals announced that it would not reconsider its decision to lift a district court's injunction against several pro-life Arkansas laws, including one that bans the practice of "dilation and evacuation" abortions. This will finally allow them to take effect after a three-year-long legal battle.

Among the pro-life measures that Arkansas can now enforce are a ban on sex-selective abortions, regulations on the preservation and disposal of aborted children's remains, a ban on "dilation and evacuation" abortions (which involve the dismemberment of unborn children), and a requirement that abortionists notify the police where abortion patients under 14 years old reside.

The Associated Press reported that the laws could take effect as soon as Dec. 22.

Click here to read more.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin Fights Pro-life Laws in Federal Court

photo credit: American Life League / Flickr

Planned Parenthood is in federal court challenging several pro-life Wisconsin laws, including one that only allows doctors to commit abortions.

The laws in question also require a patient seeking an abortion to see a doctor on two separate appointments before having an abortion procedure, and that patients receive abortion pill prescriptions directly from a doctor.

By having these laws overturned, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin would be able to have midwives and nurses give prescriptions and commit abortions without a doctor being present. 

Tanya Atkinson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, told Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR), “Planned Parenthood Wisconsin is challenging these restrictions because they do interfere with a person’s ability to make their own health care decisions and make it more difficult to access the care they need.”

She also told WPR that Planned Parenthood would offer abortions at more of its facilities if the pro-life laws are overturned. Currently, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin only offers abortion at three of its 21 facilities in the state, and abortions are only completed by part-time physicians.

Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action, argued that having these laws overturned would put women at risk. “We believe this is a dangerous road for the state to go down,” she said. “Medical abortion [the abortion pill] is not without risk. If Planned Parenthood prevails, and they open up all of their sites to do these, women will suffer from that, and certainly their unborn children will be killed because of the courts.”

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Department of Justice Files Lawsuit Against Vermont Hospital for Forcing Nurse to Participate in Elective Abortion

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday that it filed a civil lawsuit in federal court against a Vermont hospital for forcing a nurse to participate in an elective abortion against her will in 2018.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) investigated the incident at the University of Vermont Medical Center (UVMMC) and came to the conclusion in August 2019 that the hospital had forced a nurse to participate in an abortion against her will. At that time, it filed a notice of violation against the hospital for violating the Church Amendments, a statute that prohibits health care entities from discriminating against health care workers who refuse to participate in abortions as a matter of conscience.

The DOJ alleged in the new lawsuit that UVMMC has not updated its policy to comply with the Church Amendments since the incident, and they are seeking for a federal court to acknowledge the violation and force UVMMC to change its policy.

An excerpt from a DOJ press release reads:

"The United States’ complaint alleges that UVMMC violated the Church Amendments when it chose intentionally and willfully to discriminate against a nurse who plainly made her objection to participating in abortions based on her religious beliefs or moral convictions known to UVMMC. Despite knowing of her objection, UVMMC deliberately scheduled this nurse to assist with an elective abortion while deceptively misleading her to believe the procedure did not involve abortion. Once the deceived nurse entered the procedure room she learned the true nature of the procedure. After she reiterated her objection, UVMMC refused to find a non-objecting nurse to take over, effectively forcing the nurse to continue assisting in the abortion (or abandon the patient) despite her well-known religious objection. This example makes up just part of UVMMC’s ongoing pattern, practice, and policy of discriminating against health care providers who believe that the performance, or the assistance in the performance, of abortions is contrary to their religious beliefs or moral convictions."

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HHS to Block $200 Million in Medicaid Funding to California in Response to Abortion Coverage Mandate

Roger Severino, Office of Civil Rights Director
at the Department of Health and Human Services

Last Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that it would be withholding $200 million in federal Medicaid funding from California for illegally mandating that all health care plans cover abortions.

Unless California starts complying with the Weldon Amendment, which bans state and local governments from discriminating against entities that don't pay for abortions, the state will withhold $200 million per quarter starting on Jan. 1, 2020.

The OCR found California in violation of the amendment on January 24, 2020. Health plan issuers in the state were being forced to fully cover the cost of all abortions or be banned by California from issuing any insurance plans there. The HHS warned California at that time that it would face consequences unless it complied, but has refused to do so for 11 months now.

“Entities that receive HHS funds should think twice before flouting federal law and refusing to come into compliance. As a result of our actions today, California will be losing $200 million in federal funds per quarter […],” said Roger Severino, OCR Director. “Whatever one thinks of the legality of abortion, no one should be punished for declining to pay for or assist in the taking of human life.”

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Pro-Lifer Testifies to Congressional Subcommittee Discussing End of Hyde Amendment

Screenshot from House Appropriations Committee video

Last week, Christina Bennett, the Communications Director for the Family Institute of Connecticut, gave testimony to the Congressional subcommittee meeting to discuss the Hyde amendment.

The Hyde Amendment has been attached to every spending bill Congress has passed for decades, and its purpose is to prevent federal tax dollars from being used to fund abortion. Pro-abortion legislators are threatening to end the Hyde Amendment by arguing that it prevents poor women from having abortions that wealthier women can access. With the same logic, these lawmakers argue that the Hyde Amendment is inherently racist. Arguments over this topic started earlier this year, even holding up a federal stimulus bill to which pro-abortion lawmakers refused to add Hyde Amendment language.

Bennett was the only person to give pro-life testimony last week, but she was able to cover several different reasons why government funding of abortion is unethical.

Afterward, Bennett spoke Live Action about several of the arguments she made in her written and spoken testimony. Among them were how government-funded abortions enabled sex-traffickers and abusers to coerce women into abortion who otherwise may not have chosen to abort, how abortion disproportionately ends the lives of minority unborn children, and how unethical practices of the abortion industry would be rewarded by simply paying it with tax dollars.

“This is a government that has had so many abuses against people of color, and to think that on top of that, it’s going to fund abortion!” Bennett wrote in her written testimony to the subcommittee, “[It is] at the least irresponsible and at the most sinister to allow the federal government with a history of eugenics, slavery, Jim Crow laws, and other forms of systemic racism to pay for-profit organizations to end the lives of the vulnerable.”

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Federal Judge Denies Trump Administration's Request to Enforce Abortion Pill Regulations Again

photo credit: Joe Gratz / Flickr

In a ruling last week, a federal judge is continuing to prevent the FDA from enforcing Risk Evaluation and Mitigation System (REMS) safety requirements for the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol. This allows abortion pills to be sold over the internet without the woman first having an appointment with a doctor to assess the woman's pregnancy. 

Back in July, U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang placed FDA safety requirements that were applied to the abortion pill under a preliminary injunction due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Siding with the ACLU and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Chuang said that the pandemic had moved the goalposts of what should be considered an "undue burden."

In August, Chuang went even further by allowing people to purchase abortion pills both online and in pharmacies without ever seeing a doctor in-person.

Also in August, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to stay Chuang's motion on the basis that “judges are not to second-guess how officials address public health concerns,” but the court chose not to rule on the merits of the injunction. Instead, it simply asked the government to “dissolve, modify, or stay the injunction, including on the ground that relevant circumstances have changed,” and for the District Court to rule again after receiving a renewed motion from the Trump administration.

On December 9, Chuang denied the Trump administration's renewed motion. The administration argued that because some states were relaxing their restrictions and the medical community had made progress on both treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, there should be a stay or dissolution on Chuang's injunction. Chuang disagreed, calling these arguments “premature.”

“Accordingly, while the progress on vaccines and medical treatments for COVID-19 are cause for optimism and may advance the day that the Preliminary Injunction will no longer be warranted, the impact of these advances to date has not meaningfully altered the current health risks and obstacles to women seeking medication abortions. The Court therefore finds that these factors do not materially alter the likelihood of success on the merits or warrant a stay or dissolution of the injunction at the present time.”

In situations where an unborn child has surpassed the gestational age at which an abortion via the abortion pill regimen is no longer safe, or the mother has an ectopic pregnancy which would pose an even greater risk to the mother if she were to take the abortion pill regimen, REMS safety requirements can be lifesaving. By continuing to prevent the FDA from enforcing these guidelines, Judge Chuang is increasing the risk that the abortion pill has to injure or kill women in addition to their unborn children.

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