The Physician’s Crusade Against Abortion: A Review and a Prayer

     

"Life begins at conception" is the cry of Dr. Horatio Robinson Storer and many other physicians in the mid-nineteenth century, who crusaded to educate their society in the midst of an abortion epidemic.  Frederick Dyer's, The Physicians' Crusade Against Abortion meticulously documents the passionate campaign waged for the unborn by Dr. Storer and other physicians. This crusade was directly responsible for influencing abortion laws in the United States, as well as educating women to the fact that abortion is murder, at any time of pregnancy.  Dyer's employment of biology, medical terminology and practices, as well as the Hippocratic Oath "I will do no harm or injustice " is fundamental to the argument for life.

Dr. Frederick Dyer gives a detailed account, utilizing letters, essays and speeches to major medical journals and societies that laid the ground work for new laws to protect the unborn, as well as the protection of women, who many times sought abortions, not recognizing the moral and physical ramifications. Storer also reprimands the clergy for not standing against criminal abortion in their churches, and calls on the newspapers to condemn the advertisers of abortion and quack abortion remedies.  Dyer states that we have Storer to thank for our very lives, as statistically speaking, many would not be alive today had not the efforts to stop this abortion epidemic been waged in earnest.

Dr. Horatio Robinson Storer passionately states,

"And now words fail. Of the mother, by consent or by her own hand, imbued with her infant's blood; of the equally guilty father, who counsels or allows the crime; of the wretches who by their wholesale murders far out-Herod Burke and Hare (William Burke and William Hare were indicted in 1828 for 16 murders in one year in Scotland); of the public sentiment which palliates, pardons, and would even praise this so common violation of the all law, human and divine, or all instinct, or all reason, all pity, all mercy, all love, -we leave those to speak who can."

The battle against abortion is not limited to the twentieth century and Roe v. Wade, but strikes at the heart of a Christian nation.  The Physicians' Crusade Against Abortion is a necessary read for all who are in the fight for life and the unborn.  The comprehensive details of the book may make for a lengthy read, yet it is well worth the effort.  What struck at my heart was the realization that abortion is not only tied to Roe v. Wade, but was a very serious issue in the Church during the mid 1800s.  That most abortions were attained by married Protestant women, calls into question the moral health of society in the nineteenth century and perhaps sheds light on where we are today.

Dr. Dyer's bio is impressive as found on the dustcover of the book:

"Frederick N. Dyer obtained his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Michigan State University in 1968. He has published numerous scientific articles and two major reviews during four years as a university professor and more than twenty years as a research psychologist at the Army Medical Research Laboratory and elsewhere.

"In 1993, Dr. Dyer actively pursued a long-held interest in the history of abortion in the United States and in the key figure in that history, Horatio Robinson Storer. Dyer's biography of Dr. Storer, Champion of Women and the Unborn, was published in 1999. Storer's influence on other physicians was profound and the total of these physicians' efforts, the subject of the current book, produced a huge impact not only on abortion legislation, but on women's behavior with thousands of women changing their minds about abortion."

Contact: Mary Selby
Source: Caffeinated Thoughts
Publish Date: November 23, 2010

Real death panels coming our way

     

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner in economics and an influential New York Times columnist, also has a blog, "The Conscience of a Liberal." On ABC's "This Week" (Nov. 14), during a discussion on balancing the federal budget against alarming deficits, he proclaimed the way to solve this problem is through deeply cost-effective health-care rationing.

"Some years down the pike," he said, "we're going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes." That would mean the U.S. Debt Reduction Commission "should have endorsed the panel that was part of the (Obama) health-care reform."

Sarah Palin was one of the first, and the most resounding, to warn us of the coming of government panels to decide which of us – especially, but not exclusively, toward the end of life – would cost too much to survive.

She was mocked, scorned from sea to shining sea, including by the eminent Paul Krugman for being, he said, among those spreading "the death panel lie" as part of "the lunatic fringe." (Summarized in "Krugman Wants 'Death Panels'" Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Nov. 15).

Soon after he had left the ABC Studio, someone must have alerted Krugman that – gee whiz – he had publicly rooted for death panels!

Swiftly, on his blog, Krugman admitted he had indeed said those dreaded words, but:

"What I meant is that health-care costs will have to be controlled, which will surely require having Medicare and Medicaid decide what they're willing to pay for – not really death panels, of course, but consideration of medical effectiveness and, at some point, how much we're willing to spend for extreme care."

"Extreme care," professor Krugman? To be defined by government commissions, right?

Noel Sheppard of media watchdog Newsbusters was not fooled by the professor's attempt to extricate himself from embarrassment.

"As the government has deep budgetary problems," Sheppard reminded Krugman, "the cost-benefit analysis will naturally morph toward financial restraint thereby further limiting a patient's options and therefore his or her rights."

Are these Obamacare cost-benefit boards and commissions – for example, the so-called Independent Payment Advisory Board penetratingly judging Medicare's cost-effectiveness (without judicial review) – not going to determine whether certain Americans are going to continue living?

Fess up, Krugman, you owe Sarah Palin an apology for so often scandal-mongering her. Also, professor, aside from the abortion wars, don't most Americans agree that the most fundamental of all our rights is the right to life? Not the government's right to our lives.

When you said "death panels" on that Sunday morning, you knew and meant what you were saying. As an economist dedicated to deficit-reduction, you were not lamenting the coming of death panels. Clearly, you were affirming their inevitability under President Obama's determination to prevent government subsidization of "extreme care."

As you said on ABC, this is "reality therapy."

Wesley Smith, who has been the Paul Revere of investigating and documenting the radical root of Obamacare – government's invasion of the doctor-patient relationship – has revealed how far Obama's Medicare czar, Dr. Donald Berwick, intends to go to foreclose the great majority of our visits to our doctors' offices.

In his regular fact-based commentary ("Secondhand Smoke," Nov. 16), Smith's headline is: "Berwick Wants to Do Away With 80% of 'Dinosaur' Patient/Doctor Office Calls."

He reports that in Berwick's "Escape Fire: Lessons for the Future of Health Care" – which he wrote in his former role as head of the Institute for Health Care Improvement – Berwick promised us that "healing relationships ... can be fashioned in many new and wonderful forms if we suspend the old ways of making sense of care."

Huh? Which "old ways"? You may not have realized it, but, he emphasized, "the health-care encounter as a face-to-face visit is a dinosaur." In the wondrous new world of immediate health care for everyone in need, Berwick writes, "I think it rarely means … reliance on face-to-face meetings between patients, doctors and nurses."

Have your computer ready, folks.

What's next, a death-clock countdown for your desktop? 

"Tackled well," President Obama's cost-efficient physician-in-chief foresees, "this new framework will gradually reveal that half or more of such of our encounters – maybe as many as 80 percent of them – are neither wanted by patients nor deeply believed in by professionals.. .."

Am I a dinosaur in my apprehensiveness about troubling symptoms – and odds of survival – because I feel I need to talk face-to-face with another human being whose calling is diagnosis? As Wesley Smith says, speaking for me and, I expect, many of us:

"Doctors use face-to-face meetings for more than exams. Sometimes, a doctor (not a computer) can take one look at a long-time patient (or not long-time) and tell that something is amiss."

Because President Obama did not want Dr. Berwick to be subjected to probing questions at a congressional hearing, this czar of the future is a recess appointment, but he finally was inconsequentially heard. Will Obama, in 2012, turn out to be a recess president, in considerable part because of his messianic, unyielding devotion to Obamacare? Then, if he's in distress, when he's out of office, maybe Berwick will consent to care for him privately.

Presidents retain their health insurance for life, so Berwick will be appropriately compensated without being limited by Medicare rates. But will the next president and Congress rescue us from Obamacare?

Contact: Nat Hentoff
Source: WorldNetDaily
Publish Date: November 23, 2010

The peril of denying the obvious

     

One of the raging controversies in the 2010 election was a simple question about a profound issue: Is abortion covered in the health care reform law or not? "No," say the president and the congressional Democrats. "Yes," says the collective pro-life community, including ourselves.

More importantly, "Yes," said a majority of voters in the districts of pro-life Democrats who pledged themselves to vote against any bill that paid for abortions. In the end, they gave in to pressure from their leader, Nancy Pelosi, and the toll on them was high. These were the "Stupak 20," but now only nine remain. Their leader, Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, didn't even bother to run for re-election. One didn't survive his primary. The others lost on Nov. 2.

During his State of the Union message on Jan. 27, 2010, the president looked the nation in the eye and said that in the health care bill, no federal dollars would be used to pay for abortion. On March 24, he signed an executive order to declare the same, because the pro-life members of the president's own party weren't buying what he had said, and without their votes the bill would die.

About that executive order, let me quote one of the ablest pro-life analysts in D.C. — Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC): "It has the appearance of having been very carefully crafted to provide … political cover for certain members of Congress. …" Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, called the order "a symbolic gesture." It had no teeth.

The bill (now the law) does cover abortion. And it does so in four ways:

1. Through so-called "high-risk" insurance plans operated by the states. The feds quickly approved three such plans over the summer, from Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Maryland. All of them included abortion coverage, until the NRLC pointed this out publicly. When the whistle blew, the administration quickly stripped out the abortion funding.

By the way, when the White House removed the coverage, the American Civil Liberties Union objected, saying, "…There is nothing in the (health care) law that requires … this broad and highly restrictive abortion ban." (For once, we agree with the ACLU.)

2. Through private health insurance plans that are subsidized with tax money to make them more affordable. People who sign up for these must write two checks — one for the premium, and another that goes into a special pool to cover abortions. Why two checks? It's a cosmetic cover-up to allow the president to say what he did in his State of the Union speech. Even if you oppose abortion, you still must write that second check.

3. Through direct subsidies to Community Health Centers around the country. In this $7 billion slice of the law, there are no prohibitions against abortion coverage in the range of health services to be offered.

4. In the multi-state plans to be offered by private companies and regulated by the federal government. There must be at least one plan that does not cover abortions. So what about the other plans? You take a guess.

We had hoped that pro-life Democrats could have resisted the terrific pressure that was applied to them by the Democratic leaders who badly needed abortion in the bill in order to appease the pro-aborts in their political base. In order to do that, lawmakers had to pretend that abortion was not covered, because a clear majority of the country does not want abortion paid by tax dollars — no matter their personal opinion about the issue.

The election shows that the political cover-up has largely failed, thanks to the Susan B. Anthony List, NRLC, FRC Action and CitizenLink, all of which helped expose the ruse. When the Republican leaders take control in January, we pray they will acquit themselves in much better fashion, and we have high hopes they will.

Contact: Tom Minnery
Source: CitizenLink
Publish Date: November 24, 2010

What makes a doctor become an abortionist?

What makes a doctor become an abortionist? 

     

For many reasons, I don't give as many talks on abortion as I did when I first started in the Movement. But to this day what sticks out in my memory is one of the very first questions I was asked, a long, long time ago: what makes a doctor become an abortionist?

Although I don't claim to have the answer, a lengthy tribute to the wonderfulness of abortion (especially second-trimester) that appeared in the Toronto Star Saturday summarizes many of the reasons today's crop of abortionists ply their ugly trade.

A little background that appears in all these stories--the ones whose real agenda is to promote wider and deeper abortion "training" and the notion that the abortionist is courageous--is that you need something special nowadays to perform abortions. The older abortionists, we are told, were motivated by witnessing the complications that accompanied illegal abortions (as if there are not as many, if not more today, with legal abortions that are so plentiful).

So stories such as the one written by the Star's Megan Ogilvie paint a rosy picture of physicians who are deeply committed to their patients' "well-being."

Not a word about how lucrative performing abortions can be, or even a whiff of a worry that complications from abortion are common. All these men and women are noble and self-less.

The "young doctor" who carries the narrative is chosen because he was, for a while at least, caught in a dilemma. Gung-ho to perform abortions (after a stint at the clinic of the most infamous abortion in Canada "It turns out," he says, "that it's something I'm good at doing"), he had second thoughts when he and his partner decided it was time to adopt.

After a long round-about digression, Ogilvie gets back to "Dr. James" (not his real name), who has made his choice. Let me offer an extended quote:


Abortionist Leroy Carhart

One year after questions started to swirl through his mind, he has made his choice.

James will be an abortion doctor.

Not only that, but James plans to do second-trimester abortions as part of his practice. He will step to the very front line, the place where there is greatest need -- and greatest risk.

The decision came after a long period of reflection.

What he learned about himself is that he is not pro-abortion, but pro-choice. This means both abortion and adoption are part of the spectrum of care he believes in. With this distinction James was able to reconcile having one foot in an abortion clinic and the other in an adoption agency.

"In some ways, this wait has made me more pro-choice, because I see that women have all of these options," says James. "I don't think I'll ever have trouble being honest with my children about telling them what I do. To me, it will allow me to say to my child: your mother had a choice, and she decided that you should be here and wanted somebody to care for you."

That he is part of a profession that, at its roots, cares for people in need also helped James regain his firm stance on abortion.

To return to my original question, I still can't pretend to be able to offer a definitive answer why women and men pollute their medical skills. But as this quote illustrates, it begins with a deep confusion coupled with a kind of third-rate moral equivalency that permeates the pro-abortion mind.

You got happy babies at one end, who find adoptive homes at one end. At the other end, unborn children torn limb from limb, whose "home" is the garbage disposal. This is the infamous "spectrum of care."

If it's six of one, half dozen of the other, no wonder "James was able to reconcile having one foot in an abortion clinic and the other in an adoption agency."

Final thought. Obviously from the pro-life perspective, we find it reprehensible that doctors would choose death for their patients--and, by the way, were the child not chosen for death, no doctor would deny he/she has a second patient. But making it even worse is the congratulatory tone they adopt--aren't we just so brave.

No, no you aren't.

Contact: Dave Andrusko
Source: National Right to Life
Publish Date: November 23, 2010

Peter Singer: Views on Infanticide Nothing New–But Just as Bad

      
      Peter Singer

Defenders of Peter Singer like to say that we critics are just too dull to really understand what the great man is saying.  And hence, we distort his thinking on issues like infanticide.  But the real problem for Singerphiles is that we understand precisely what he advocates–and more importantly, where such thinking would lead.

I make it a habit not to use Nazi analogies.  Singer is not a racist or anti Semite. Nor is he a totalitarian. But he does believe that babies past the second year are not persons, and don't have the same moral status as those of us who (at least today) possess sufficient self awareness to earn that status.  He also believes that disabled infants can be killed as a matter of compassion and to serve the family's interests.

Preventing suffering and promoting the interests of family and state were the bases for advocating infanticide permissiveness policies in Germany throughout the 1920s and 1930s.  This eugenics/utilitarian/compassion meme led to the first authorized killing in the Baby Knauer.  Here's what I wrote about it in Culture of Death, quoting three notable history books that focused on the case:

The first known German government-approved infanticide, the killing of Baby Knauer, occurred in early 1939.  The baby was blind and had a leg and an arm missing.  Baby Knauer's father was distraught at having a disabled child.  So, he wrote to Chancellor Hitler requesting permission to have the infant "put to sleep."  Hitler had been receiving many such requests from German parents of disabled babies over several years and had been waiting for just the right opportunity to launch his euthanasia plans.  The Knauer case seemed the perfect test case.  He sent one of his personal physicians, Karl Rudolph Brandt, to investigate.  Brandt's instructions were to verify the facts, and if the child was disabled as described in the father's letter, he was to assure the infant's doctors that they could kill the child without legal consequence.  With the Fuhrer's assurance, Baby Knauer's doctors willingly murdered their patient at the request of his father. [Burleigh, Death and Deliverance, pp. 95-96; Lifton, Nazi Doctors, pp. 50-51; Gallagher, By Trust Betrayed, pp. 95-96.]

And here's how BK's father later described his conversation with Brand about the killing of his boy, again as presented in COD:

Baby Knauer's father was quoted by Lifton in, The Nazi Doctors, as stating in 1973 that Brandt assured them "we wouldn't have to suffer from this terrible misfortune because the Fuhrer had granted us the mercy killing of our son.  Later, we could have other children, handsome and healthy, of whom the Reich could be proud." [Lifton, p. 115]

And here's what Singer wrote about infanticide to protect the interests of a hypothetical future sibling in Practical Ethics (p. 186):

When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed.  The loss of the happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of a happier life for the second.  Therefore, if the killing of the hemophiliac infant has no adverse effect on others it would . . . be right to kill him.

Compare what Singer wrote and what Brandt told the father of Baby Knauer.  What is the difference? I can't see any. Both supported infanticide as a means of ending suffering and making a happier future possible for later-born infants.

Singer has also defended himself by stating that the German infanticide was in secret, which he opposes. That was generally true, but not in the Baby Knauer case.

Awful things said in a charming Australian accent are still awful.  Singer is our most influential contemporary thinker.  Much of what he advocates has been done–terribly–before. That is why his views must be exposed, and argued against, at all opportunities.

Contact: Wesley J. Smith
Source: Secondhand Smoke
Publish Date: November 24, 2010

The Worth of Every Life

     

As you get older, your life increasingly intersects with the lives of people who are much older and who are, medically, often in a very vulnerable state. I mention that at the beginning because this exposure means I am keenly aware how susceptible otherwise good people are to various rationalizations to withhold or withdraw treatment, on the one hand, and "aiding" the elderly to die, on the other hand.

What's really changed, however, is that like the virus that "jumps" from animals to humans, the anti-life virus has jumped age categories. Beyond that, the justifications for "aiding" people in dying have now predictably moved from so-called terminally ill patients to (for now) elderly people who are otherwise healthy but who are "depressed" or don't feel life is "worth living."

Canada just rejected Bill C-384, a euthanasia bill introduced by MP Francine Lalonde. According to Evan Menzies, writing in yesterday's National Post, the bill stated "that doctors would not be prosecuted if they help a person who is at least 18 years of age, who after being given or refusing treatment, continues to, 'suffer experience severe physical or mental pain without any prospect of relief,' or suffers from terminal illness."

It is of a piece with a movement in (where else?) the Netherlands "that demands that people who are more than 70 years old, and tired of life, should have the right to be killed humanely," Menzies writes. He adds ominously, "It is a movement gaining increased public support."

Menzies offers a thoughtful critique of this brand of thinking (http://life.nationalpost.com/2010/11/21/opinion-every-life-is-worth-the-compassion-of-saving). He begins with a thought experiment--a hypothetical with a guy threatening to jump off the roof.

Our traditional response is for the police to try to dissuade the jumper and then help him receive the kind of psychiatric help he needs.

But if a measure like C-384 passed, a police offer could say, in effect, just take a breath, step down and we'll help you "find a way to obtain physician-assisted suicide, a less messy form of self-destruction." As Menzies argues, that would not be a fanciful scenario.

In his final sentence, Menzies offers a value judgment you either gratefully accept and defend as a precious heirloom or grow annoyed at because you consider it an out-of-date hindrance that must be swept away: "No matter the physical or mental state of a person, the sanctity of their being and worth cannot be measured in quantifiable terms."

If you don't find this compelling, how far before legalized euthanasia hold sways? How long before patients have to justify NOT being killed? How long before quiet talk of "reliev[ing] the financial burdens of our families and the health-care system" becomes a loud and angry demand?

Closer to home, it is comparative easy to engage people's attention when National Right to Life explains how ObamaCare forwards the abortion agenda of the Abortion Establishment. But NRLC is one very few voices that consistently and forcefully talks about the inducements to rationing that are embedded in ObamaCare.

If you want to help repeal and replace ObamaCare, be sure to read the materials you find about ObamaCare and rationing found at http://powellcenterformedicalethics.blogspot.com.

An especially useful entry--several cogent, straightforward talking points--can be found at http://www.nrlc.org/HealthCareRationing/TalkingPointsHCR.pdf.

The bottom line is, as the Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics puts it, "If the Obama Health Care Rationing Law is not repealed by 2013 before its most dangerous provisions come into effect, the result will be the rationing denial of lifesaving medical treatment, and consequent premature and involuntary death, of an unknown but immense number of Americans. The pro-life movement must devote itself over the upcoming critical years to ensuring that the American people are given the facts needed to counter the misinformation."

Contact: Dave Andrusko
Source: National Right to Life
Publish Date: November 23, 2010

The peril of denying the obvious

     

One of the raging controversies in the 2010 election was a simple question about a profound issue: Is abortion covered in the health care reform law or not? "No," say the president and the congressional Democrats. "Yes," says the collective pro-life community, including ourselves.

More importantly, "Yes," said a majority of voters in the districts of pro-life Democrats who pledged themselves to vote against any bill that paid for abortions. In the end, they gave in to pressure from their leader, Nancy Pelosi, and the toll on them was high. These were the "Stupak 20," but now only nine remain. Their leader, Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, didn't even bother to run for re-election. One didn't survive his primary. The others lost on Nov. 2.

During his State of the Union message on Jan. 27, 2010, the president looked the nation in the eye and said that in the health care bill, no federal dollars would be used to pay for abortion. On March 24, he signed an executive order to declare the same, because the pro-life members of the president's own party weren't buying what he had said, and without their votes the bill would die.

About that executive order, let me quote one of the ablest pro-life analysts in D.C. — Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC): "It has the appearance of having been very carefully crafted to provide … political cover for certain members of Congress. …" Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, called the order "a symbolic gesture." It had no teeth.

The bill (now the law) does cover abortion. And it does so in four ways:

1. Through so-called "high-risk" insurance plans operated by the states. The feds quickly approved three such plans over the summer, from Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Maryland. All of them included abortion coverage, until the NRLC pointed this out publicly. When the whistle blew, the administration quickly stripped out the abortion funding.

By the way, when the White House removed the coverage, the American Civil Liberties Union objected, saying, "…There is nothing in the (health care) law that requires … this broad and highly restrictive abortion ban." (For once, we agree with the ACLU.)

2. Through private health insurance plans that are subsidized with tax money to make them more affordable. People who sign up for these must write two checks — one for the premium, and another that goes into a special pool to cover abortions. Why two checks? It's a cosmetic cover-up to allow the president to say what he did in his State of the Union speech. Even if you oppose abortion, you still must write that second check.

3. Through direct subsidies to Community Health Centers around the country. In this $7 billion slice of the law, there are no prohibitions against abortion coverage in the range of health services to be offered.

4. In the multi-state plans to be offered by private companies and regulated by the federal government. There must be at least one plan that does not cover abortions. So what about the other plans? You take a guess.

We had hoped that pro-life Democrats could have resisted the terrific pressure that was applied to them by the Democratic leaders who badly needed abortion in the bill in order to appease the pro-aborts in their political base. In order to do that, lawmakers had to pretend that abortion was not covered, because a clear majority of the country does not want abortion paid by tax dollars — no matter their personal opinion about the issue.

The election shows that the political cover-up has largely failed, thanks to the Susan B. Anthony List, NRLC, FRC Action and CitizenLink, all of which helped expose the ruse. When the Republican leaders take control in January, we pray they will acquit themselves in much better fashion, and we have high hopes they will.

Contact: Tom Minnery
Source: CitizenLink
Publish Date: November 24, 2010

Government Approves Second Clinical Trial Using Cells From Human Embryos

    
     Embryonic Stell Cell Research Clinical Trial

For the second time in less than six months – and in U.S. history – the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the use life-destroying human embryonic stem cells in a human clinical trial.

Advanced Cell Technologies (ACT) received the government's approval to people suffering from Stargardt disease, a rare genetic disorder that often leads to blindness. Only 30,000 Americans suffer from this particular disease; however, researchers say they hope to gain information for other progressive eye diseases.

Geron Corporation was the first to get the FDA's OK'd to inject embryonic stem cells in patients whose spinal cords have been crushed.

Dr. David Prentice, senior fellow for Life Sciences with the Family Research Council, said ethical and medical concerns abound. Not only are pre-born humans destroyed, but tumors are commonplace.

He said that these firms are aware that their embryonic cells won't work past one or two weeks after the injury and that they should be using adult stem cells instead.
"Adult stem cells are really helping patients now," he said. "Thousands of patients, dozens of diseases and it doesn't rely on destroying human life."

Source: CitizenLink
Publish Date: November 22, 2010

The November 2 Elections and the Passage of State Pro-Life Legislation

    

The headline happened to be for a story in Sunday's Washington Post, but the thoughts expressed could be found in story after story following the pasting pro-abortion Democrats took November 2.

"GOP's gains ready to propel social issues back into spotlight" blared the headline accompanying Sandhya Somashekhar's November 21 story. I will talk about the substance of the story in a moment, but the story's preface is equally, if not more, important.

Nobody disagrees that the mid-term elections were "economy-centric," so long as you don't come up with the part of the sentence that preceded that phrase: that "Social issues barely rated." That is flatly wrong.

NRL PAC was extensively involved in 122 federal races nationwide--and won 84 of them with nine still undecided as of the day following the election. The abortion issue and abortion funding in ObamaCare were crucially important in tight races (of which there were many). What do we base that on?

Our polling found that 30% said abortion affected their vote. Of that figure, 22% said they voted for candidates who opposed abortion as contrasted with only 8% who said they voted for candidates who favored abortion. This yields a 14% advantage for pro-life candidates over pro-abortion candidates.

Then there was the response to the question, "Did the issue of funding for abortion in the Obama health care law affect the way you voted in today's election?" 31% of voters responded in the affirmative .

How did that 31% break out? 27% said they voted "for candidates who opposed the health care law," and 4% who said they voted "for candidates who favored the health care law." Put another way, 87% of the voters who said the issue mattered, voted in accord with the NRLC position.

And this was made possible because people HEARD NRL PAC. Our involvement and national reach was reflected in the post-election poll conducted by The Polling Company which found that 24% of voters recalled hearing or seeing advertising from, or receiving information from, National Right to Life. One-quarter of the population heard the truth--very impressive, wouldn't you say?

Okay, a lot of preliminaries, but crucial to understanding stories like the one written by the Post's Somashekhar. Pro-life votes were essential to the victories of pro-life Republicans at the federal level AND at the state level.

And contrary to the impression left in stories such as these, these candidates are perfectly capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time: fighting to right floundering state economies and passing protective abortion legislation that could not have been enacted November 1.

We know for a fact that state legislatures dominated by Democrats (who are overwhelmingly pro-abortion) make passage of pro-life legislature close to impossible. But the numbers have radically shifted, virtually reversing what was the case prior to the elections. As Somashekhar observes,

"Before the midterm elections, Democrats controlled 27 state legislatures outright. Republicans were in charge in 14 states, and eight states were split. (Nebraska, which has a single legislative chamber, is officially nonpartisan). Today, Republicans control 26 state legislatures, Democrats 17, and five have split control. In New York, officials are still determining who is in charge in the state Senate. Republicans control more legislatures than they have since 1952."

Contact: Dave Andrusko
Source: National Right to LIfe
Publish Date: November 23, 2010

Illegal abortions go unpunished ... for now

A state attorney in North Dakota won't prosecute an unlicensed abortionist for a Class B felony.

    
     Lori Lynn Thorndike

Lori Lynn Thorndike of Colorado has been performing abortions at the Red River Women's Clinic in Fargo with an expired license. (See earlier story) But Operation Rescue's Cheryl Sullinger, who has communicated with officials in North Dakota, says the state has no plans to file criminal charges against the physician.

 "The state's attorney admits that she did do several illegal abortions in September when she was there under a lapsed license, but he felt like because she was licensed in other states that...it was okay," Sullinger explains.

But she points out that a physician must be licensed in each state they practice. Otherwise, they are practicing medicine without a license, which is a Class B felony.

 "We think that that is only going to encourage abortionists who already believe that they're above the law to commit other illegal acts," she notes.

 But State Attorney Birch Burdick's decision to not take action will not be the final word as Sullinger reports that her group is "working with other pro-life groups in North Dakota to try to get this case up to the attorney general's office."

 Meanwhile, some lawmakers who helped pass the laws to protect women are unhappy about the situation.

Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow
Publish Date: November 23, 2010

Online Debate Examines Colorado Personhood Amendment Tactic

    
     Personhood USA

For many years Operation Rescue has worked to restore legal protections to the pre-born. In early 2006, when South Dakota was attempting to pass the first state-wide ban on abortion, Operation Rescue was there supporting those efforts. Later, when that law was challenged through the referendum process, Operation Rescue was there.

We sent one of our missionaries at that time, Keith Mason, who now heads Personhood U.S.A., to South Dakota, Mississippi, and elsewhere to learn all he could about the abortion bans that were sweeping the nation in 2006, so we could know best how to support those efforts.

In our office, we often discussed the topic of personhood and how the "Blackman Hole" was the loophole in Roe v. Wade that could eventually lead our country back to restoring legal protections for all, no matter the age or stage of development. One could say that the Personhood Movement was birthed in our office.

Keith Mason learned well from us, and after leaving Operation Rescue, he founded Personhood U.S.A. and began promoting Personhood amendments throughout the country, especially in Colorado.

Recently, a lively discussion on Facebook concerning Colorado's twice defeated Amendment 62 prompted Troy Newman to extend an invitation to the Personhood camp and to those who question the wisdom of tactics used by Personhood U.S.A. in Colorado to a friendly debate to be hosted at www.operationrescue.org. We asked both sides to submit 400 word statements in support of their views.

Keith Ashley, of Personhood Kansas submitted a statement on behalf of the Personhood organization. Steve Ertelt, Editor of LifeNews.com, has submitted a statement in opposition. We encourage all to read the two statements and engage in the debate through the comment feature at the end of the articles. We ask, as we have with our debaters, that those who comment abstain from ad hominem attacks and profanity.

"It is our prayer that this debate will air ideas that will ultimately be beneficial for the Pro-life Movement as a whole and help guide us toward the most efficient and practical way to stop abortion in America as soon as humanly possible," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. "That is a goal to which we can all agree."

We plan to allow Mr. Ashley and Mr. Ertelt to post rebuttals to each other's statements in the near future.

Contact: Troy Newman
Source: Operation Rescue
Publish Date: November 22, 2010

Incoming Iowa Governor, House Speaker Promise Pro-Life Legislation

    
     Iowa Governor-elect Terry Branstad

Iowa's incoming Republican leadership in the House vows to pass pro-life legislation in 2011. Governor-elect Terry Branstad has said he would sign such a bill into law.

 Speaker-elect Kraig Paulsen said it is necessary, since Nebraska's LeRoy Carhart recently announced he was opening an abortion clinic in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

 Chuck Hurley, president of the Iowa Family Policy Center Action, is encouraged by the attention to this very real danger.

 "We have a crisis now that has got the attention of House-speaker elect Kraig Paulsen," Hurley said. "When Carhart announced that he was going to metastasize his evil deeds – he was going to take his late-term abortion practice into other states – the natural place to go was across the river into Council Bluffs, Iowa."

 Hurley said the obstacle will be the Senate, which is controlled by pro-abortion Democrats.

 He also noted the questionable location of the late-term abortion clinic – the Democrat Senate Majority Leader's district.

 Hurley said Planned Parenthood runs an online "telemed" chemical abortion pilot program in Iowa, which they hope to export to the other 49 states. It involves an abortionist consulting with a patient via webcam, then dispensing the abortion pill by remote control.

 "There's going to be legislation to try to limit – or eliminate – these 'telemed' abortions," he said. "I have talked to several of the new legislators. They will be also pushing for a clear statement on the personhood of every human being from the moment of conception."

Source: CitizenLink
Publish Date: November 22, 2010

Abortion Group Sues FDA to Allow Unrestricted Access to Morning-After Pill

     
     Morning-After Pill

The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) filed a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday, as part of its five-year quest to make the morning-after pill available to girls of all ages – and without parental consent.

The pro-abortion group first sued the agency in 2005. One year later, the FDA approved making Plan B available to women 18 and over, and only by prescription.

On March 23, 2009, U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman ordered the FDA to make Plan B accessible to women 17 years and older. He also advised the agency to permit unrestricted availability.

Korman wrote that the Bush-era FDA acted in "bad faith and in response to political pressure" by delaying a decision on the drug. However, the Obama administration has been equally elusive.

Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, the FDA's acting commissioner at the time the decision came down, said the age restriction was added because the manufacturer, Barr Laboratories, failed to provide adequate data on how the drug could affect minors.

Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, said Plan B has been an utter failure in reducing pregnancies and abortion – and may even increase sexually transmitted infections.

"Rather than admit they were wrong, CRR is diverting attention by running to the court to impose a political judgment," Wright said. "This radical abortion group is attempting to bypass doctors and parents so that minor girls will be vulnerable to adults who would manipulate them.

"This won't benefit girls, who would rely on this ineffective drug and end up pregnant or with a disease. It will only benefit drug companies and abortion groups."

Source: CitizenLink
Publish Date: November 19, 2010

That’s Not a Baby … It’s Just Your Opinion

     
     Pre-born Human Baby

The fact that a preborn baby is a human being is lost on far too many people in our country. The incessant lies of organizations such as Planned Parenthood and others like it constantly inundate our society – confusing those who may not have been exposed to, or who may not understand, the truth.

These organizations constantly push harder for ways to keep people from seeing and understanding that a baby is a person – and has a life he deserves to live. They want us to think we're powerless to stop them, but we are not. Our voices can be heard, even if the babies' voices cannot.

Proponents and practitioners of abortion are becoming more and more strident in their denials regarding not only the rights of mothers to know all the facts but the reality of who is killed during an abortion.

Imagine sitting in an audience where a debate on the humanity of the preborn child is taking place, and hearing from Planned Parenthood, "We are not going to try to use science or evidence – the fact of the matter is, this is, this is opinion. We all have our own opinions as far as when human life begins."

As if this were not proof enough of the crippled consciences among those who favor aborting the innocent, think about the situation in Rockford, Illinois, where abortionist Dennis Christensen's facility is located, an abortion clinic that has not been inspected in 14 years.

Pro-Life Corner's editor has exposed this calamitous situation, writing,

How is it that an abortion "clinic" has a free ride for safety and hygiene? Are women so substandard that they don't deserve proper care? Where are the women who rant and rave to keep abortion legal? Why aren't they doing something about the deplorable conditions of the abortion mill in Rockford? Why hasn't the mayor, the city attorney, or anyone else in authority done something about these conditions? Is there no one in the city of Rockford or the state of Illinois who cares about the sub-standard conditions we see at this place? Safe, legal abortions are not taking place in Rockford. They may meet the criteria of legal, but safe? I think not. 

In the very same city, pro-life activists are treated as non-persons and with disrespect by the police, while the man who is operating a filthy, inhumane, unsafe so-called medical establishment gets away with murder.

Another drama is playing out in New York City. The City Council is clearly in cahoots with NARAL, publisher of a recent scathing report entitled, "The Lies, Manipulations and Privacy Violations of Crisis Pregnancy Centers in New York City."

The City Council is holding hearings on a proposed law aimed at these life-affirming agencies even though the NARAL report is full of erroneous, hysterical claims.

Theresa Bonopartis, a post-abortive woman and founder of Lumina, examined the proposed law and the NARAL publication, and told the City Council,

Over the years I have heard accounts of the manipulation and deception of countless abortion clinics: women seeking help to have their babies who are encouraged to abort for "mental health" reasons, women who did not know or were not told the development of their unborn baby, or the details and dangers of the abortion procedure they were about to undergo. I myself am one of those women. Women deserve to know the entire truth about abortion whether they are in a CPC [crisis pregnancy center] or an abortion clinic. Why is there no legislation being passed to ensure this? You continue to deny women the whole truth of the dangers of abortion yet you appease the powerful political abortion lobby.

Clearly, whether one is a resident of Colorado, Illinois, New York City or practically anywhere in this nation, murder and mayhem are being legitimized while scientific facts, the rights of women and the heroic actions of pro-life Americans are being ignored, thwarted or otherwise marginalized. Whatever happened to freedom of speech, equal rights for all, both born and preborn, and truth?

Apparently the power and financial muscle of the abortion cartel are enough to make mice out of the men elected to public office to serve all the people.

Please don't sit back and say there is nothing you can do. There is so much that you can do. Get involved today.

Contact: Judie Brown
Source: CNSNews.com
Publish Date: November 22, 2010

Couple uses internet poll to decide whether to abort or not

     
     17 Week Ultrasound Image of the baby in the poll.

A young couple from a Minneapolis suburb is leaving it up to internet users as to whether they will abort their baby or not. Pete and Alisha Arnold, whose baby is in its 17th week, are using an internet poll to ask readers, "Should we give birth or have an abortion?" The couple says that they will use the results of the poll to help make their decision about whether to keep the child.

While the site also features a blog where Pete and Alisha post comments, the main purpose is the poll concerning the baby's life. In the upper right hand corner, the site says, "You can vote and choose whether we abort or keep our unborn child. For the first time, your vote on the topic of abortion can make a difference."

The poll currently stands as 80.51% in favor of giving birth, while only 19.49% want the couple to abort the baby. The Arnolds say they will close the poll December 7th, two days before the last day they could get an abortion.

The couple has said that they are leaving the fate of the child to voters because "Voting is such an integral part of the American identity."

According to the site, the Arnolds have had three past miscarriages. The two most recent miscarriages were in January and April. The couple, in their thirties, has described both of these earlier pregnancies as "planned," leaving many to wonder why they would consider killing this most recent child.

In their first posts to the website, Pete and Alisha's reactions to becoming parents were widely different. Pete described himself as "excited at the prospects of being a father" and said he was crossing his "fingers and toes that this one goes off without a hitch."

However, Alisha expressed more reservations about the pregnancy. She said that she fears the expectation of being a "perfect wife and mother while maintaining a full-time job." She also said that she was "afraid that I will eventually regret starting a family and 'settling down'."

As the pregnancy has gone on, more and more signs point to a healthy baby. Many posts detail the baby's development by describing doctor's appointments and using information from different pregnancy resources. All the most recent doctor's appointments have shown the baby to be developing normally and that Alisha is "right on target for her due date of 4/28/11."

Alisha commented that being in her 17th week, this is now the longest pregnancy she has had to date. According to Alisha, the baby that miscarried in January was only 13.5 weeks in development.

Recently, a controversy erupted on the site over users of a message board call "4chan." In a blog post dated yesterday, Pete explained that members of 4chan had been posting links to Birthornot.com alongside pictures of pornography in order to encourage people to visit the blog and vote to have the baby aborted.

Before visitors of 4chan started encouraging users to vote for the abortion, only 21% of people had voted in favor of killing the child. After the links were posted, that percentage jumped to 55%, although that number has since reversed strongly in favor of allowing the child to live.

According to Pete, he and Alisha will still consider the abortion based on the votes from those at 4chan. In the aforementioned post, Pete said, "I see 4chan as encouraging people to vote in the poll.  How they do it is beyond my control and should not influence decisions about what we are doing here."

"We don't see a difference between this and what politicians or supporters do in regards to campaigning"

Contact: Matthew Anderson
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: November 19, 2010

IVF: Octomom’s Doctor Followed Ordinary Procedure

     
     Nadya Suleman

I have always believed that Octomom's (Nadya Suleman) doctor didn't do anything that other IVF doctors don't sometimes do, that is implant six embryos.  His biggest crime, for which his medical license is now at risk, was to embarrass the sector because Suleman chose to carry all of her 8 babies (two twinned)  to term rather than abort some of them, a routine procedure in IVF practice euphemistically known as "selective reduction."  In other words–and boy, is this ironic–abortion is a normal part of IVF infertility treatments.

That appears to be the case.  From the story in the LA Times:

    Dr. Jeffery Steinberg, an Encino-based fertility specialist, testified Wednesday at a hearing held before Administrative Law Judge Daniel Juarez in downtown Los Angeles, the most recent in a series of hearings related to Kamrava's medical practices. Steinberg said he spoke with Kamrava and reviewed his records. He said he found the records justified Kamrava's aggressive treatment of Suleman because she had fertility problems and Kamrava had a low success rate at getting patients pregnant. Those aggressive treatments included implanting Suleman with six embryos in 2006, when she became pregnant with twins…

    But Steinberg, who has been practicing for 35 years and treats 200 to 480 patients annually, said many of his patients want to become pregnant with multiple babies in order to have large families. "In our eyes, those embryos belong to the patients and they have to make decisions about them," Steinberg said. Kamrava has said he counseled Suleman about reducing the number of fetuses and attempted to follow up with her after she became pregnant, but was unable to reach her. "Fetal reduction remains as our safety net with in vitro fertilization," Steinberg said. "We counsel them in advance about options and alternatives and ways to manage, and that's essentially what went on here."

I recall speaking several years ago at a bioethics conference in Banf.  A Canadian bioethicist complained that the government didn't pay for some aspects of IVF (I don't recall the specifics), and then noted that abortion was a necessary part of IVF, stating, "We turn triplets into twins."  In my comments, I said that I thought we should be honest about these things, not euphemistic. Thus, the triplets weren't really turned into twins: They remained triplets with one dead sibling.

It seems to me that Steinberg's testimony reflects a deprofessionalization of  medicine within the sector by turning fertility physicians into mere order takers.  Indeed, we now see that practitioners can't legally restrict their practices to infertile married couples in order not to be discriminatory.  More to the point, consider the crass view of embryos and fetuses these practices reflect, as basically fungible produce until they are born. After all, if we can make as many new human lives as we want, and destroy the "excess" with impunity, it means that none of then had intrinsic dignity nor were they considered unique beings. In such cases, survival primarily depends on where the fetus is being carried in the womb.

It doesn't have to be this way. Italy, for example, allows only 3 embryos to be made at a time for IVF and requires implantation of all successfully created.  That results in no selective reduction as a normal part of IVF pregnancy and no hundreds of thousands of excess embryos to be turned into mere instrumentalities, a mere resource ripe for the harvest.

So, mass creation, implantation, and abortion aren't necessary to IVF practice. Rather, they are expedient–on several levels.  Those are two different things. 

Contact: Wesley J. Smith
Source: Secondhand Smoke
Publish Date: November 22, 2010

Nearly 25% of UK women in 20s have had an abortion: survey

     

The UK's Daily Mail this week finished a three-part series on the sexual habits of modern Britons with a feature linking casual sex and Britain's notoriously high rates of abortion among single women.

The Mail's survey showed that almost half of British women (48%) in their 20s have had a one-night stand. For women in their 30s and 40s, the percentage was 46 and 45 percent, respectively. Twenty-three per cent of women in their 20s have had at least one abortion, with 17 and 22 per cent for women in their 30s and 40s.

More than one-third of women surveyed in their 50s have had casual sexual encounters.

Anthony Ozimic, communications officer for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, told LifeSiteNews.com that the pro-abortion lobby is largely to blame for having created this sexual free-for-all that is damaging women.

"In every field of human activity or science," he said, "young people are taught that good habits help them to avoid bad consequences - except in the field of sex and relationships."

The Mail said, however, that few women expressed any regret at their behavior. One woman, 46-year-old Jayne Price Cambridge, was among the few who said she wished she had not slept around in her younger days. "Sadly, while at the time I thought I was just having fun, it is a part of my past I wish I could erase," she said.

Ashleigh Taylor, 25, shared her story with the Mail of a one-night-stand that she had before entering university, and the long term psychological consequences of the abortion that followed.

"For two days after the termination I lay in bed, shocked and exhausted — it was horrendous. I told Mum I had a very heavy period.

"Then I went back to my job and, three months later, started university. I coped by blanking it out. And, although I still believe I did the right thing, I'm paranoid about getting pregnant again and haven't had a successful relationship since the abortion."

Of her one-night encounter, Ashleigh said, "It was an isolated moment of madness and one I bitterly regret,' she says. 'But I couldn't have brought a baby into the world at that time.'

"The pro-abortion lobby is squarely to blame for the heart-breaking damage inflicted on countless numbers of young women through dysfunctional relations with men," said Ozimic about the Mail's findings. "It is the pro-abortion lobby that have sold young women the lie that sex can safely be separated from love, marriage and children.

"Women were at the forefront of the much-derided Victorian-era campaigns to reform public morals, precisely because women and their children, both born and unborn, were the main victims of irresponsible sexual behaviour."

The Mail quoted Dr. Andrew Fergusson of the Christian Medical Fellowship, saying, "We have reached a point where abortion is seen as just another method of contraception. For years, the effects have been swept under the carpet and evidence is only just beginning to emerge of real physical and psychological implications for some of the women who have abortions."

"There is also evidence of increased suicide attempts and episodes of depression among women who have had abortions."

For women in unexpected pregnancies, abortion is routinely offered by medical practitioners as the only solution. Amy Connolly, 28, a receptionist from South-West London, told the Mail that when she became "accidentally" pregnant, "Neither my GP nor anyone else suggested I might have the baby."

"I expected to feel relief after the termination. Instead, I felt grief and huge self-loathing. I'd ended a life."

Contact: Hilary White
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: November 19, 2010

Pope outlines dangers of reproductive health care concept

     
     Pope Benedict XV1

The Pope told a recent gathering that health care cannot "divorce itself from moral rules." As an example he cited how the concept of "reproductive health" does more to work against the care of human life than for it.

The Pope's remarks on health care were sent to Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski – president of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care – on the event of the council's 25th international conference. The group's theme this year focused on the Holy Father's latest encyclical and was titled, "Towards egalitarian and human health care in the light of 'Caritas in veritate.'"

Archbishop Zimowski explained that members from over 60 countries gathered in Rome on Nov. 18 to address some of the major threats to the health of individuals around the globe.

Pope Benedict began his message to the archbishop by underlining the need for what he called "true distributive justice" that guarantees health care for everyone, based on "objective need."

The Pontiff also stressed the need to work with greater commitment "at all levels in order for the right to health care to be effective, facilitating access to primary medical assistance."

He continued to say, however, that "the world of health care cannot divorce itself from moral rules, which must govern it in order to ensure it does not become inhuman."

"Unfortunately, along with positive and encouraging results, opinions and schools of thought exist which harm this justice," he wrote. "I am thinking of questions such as those associated with so-called 'reproductive health,' the use of artificial procreation techniques that involve the destruction of embryos, and legalized euthanasia."

Pope Benedict said that the defense of life from conception until natural death "must be supported and proclaimed, even if this means going against the tide."

"For this reason," he added, "I would advocate the adoption of a model of development based on the centrality of the human person, on the promotion and sharing of the common good, on responsibility, on a realization of our need for a changed lifestyle, and on prudence, the virtue which tells us what needs to be done today in view of what might happen tomorrow."

"Only by looking at the world with the gaze of the Creator, which is a gaze of love, will humanity learn to live on earth in peace and justice, equitably sharing the planet and its resources for the good of each man and woman," he said. 

Source: CNA/EWTN News
Publish Date: November 21, 2010

Thomas More Society Rallies Illinois State's Attorneys in Support of Parental Notice

"Friend of the Court" Brief Submitted in 15-Year Battle for Parental Notice of Abortion

    

Today, the Thomas More Society took another step toward the long-overdue enforcement of Illinois' Parental Notice of Abortion Act. Society attorneys filed a "friend of the court" brief in the Illinois Appellate Court on behalf of a bipartisan group of Illinois State's Attorneys, urging the rejection of the American Civil Liberties Union's latest attack on the Act's constitutionality. The ACLU contends that the Act violates the privacy, due process and equal protection guarantees in the Illinois Constitution of 1970.

The parental notice law requires an abortion doctor to notify a parent, grandparent, stepparent living in the household or legal guardian before performing an abortion on a minor, unless the minor states in writing that she is a victim of abuse or secures a confidential "judicial bypass." Although the Illinois General Assembly enacted the current parental notice law on a bipartisan basis more than 15 years ago, the law has not gone into effect because of the ACLU's federal and state court challenges. Though upheld by a Cook County judge, the law's enforcement was still "stayed" by agreement of the ACLU and Attorney General, pending a final ruling on the ACLU's appeal. Illinois is the Midwest's only state without a parental notice or consent law in effect.

"We are thrilled that so many county prosecutors throughout Illinois support a parent's right to know before a minor is taken for an abortion," said Peter Breen, executive director and legal counsel at the Thomas More Society. "It's long past time for Illinois to protect its daughters from 'secret' abortions by affirming the right of parents to be involved in their children's medical decisions."

The amicus brief argues the following points:

    * The Illinois Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. On the contrary, the 1970 Constitutional Convention referred abortion issues to the legislature.
      
    * Numerous other federal and state courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have repeatedly upheld parental notice as constitutional.
      
    * The Illinois General Assembly properly found that parental consultation prior to an abortion promotes many legitimate state interests.

Thomas More Society special counsel Paul Benjamin Linton drafted the brief, which thirteen State's Attorneys from across Illinois have joined.

Contact: Stephanie Lewis
Source: Thomas More Society
Publish Date: November 18, 2010

U.S. Senate committee considering ratification of pro-abort UN treaty

    
     Rep. Chris Smith (R-New Jersey)

The Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Human Rights and Law is holding hearings today to consider whether the United States should ratify a radical UN treaty that could lead to mandated federal funding of abortion and the violation of the conscience rights of pro-life health professionals.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), for which the subcommittee is considering approval, was signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 but has never garnered enough support in the Senate to be ratified into law.

In the announcement for the hearing, the subcommittee billed the treaty as protecting "fundamental human rights." However, pro-life Rep. Chris Smith (R-New Jersey) has pointed out that ratification of CEDAW would "subject (the U.S.) to the pro-abortion ideology" of a UN oversight committee that enforces the treaty.

Though CEDAW itself never directly mentions abortion, Article 12 has been used by the committee that oversees enforcement of the treaty to attempt to force abortion on numerous countries where it is outlawed.

Article 12 states, "States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of health care in order to ensure … access to health care services, including those related to family planning."

In a letter addressed to members of Congress, Smith explained that the CEDAW Committee interprets Article 12 to mean that all member countries must publicly fund elective abortions. Further, the Committee uses Article 12 to argue that pro-life physicians do not have the right to refuse participation in procedures that violate their consciences.

Rep. Smith pointed to several of many statements the Committee has made over the years displaying their overt pro-abortion ideology.

In 1998, the Committee wrote an opinion to Croatia in which it reprimanded the country for laws protecting pro-life doctors' rights saying: "It [the Committee] is also concerned about information regarding the refusal, by some hospitals, to provide abortions on the basis of conscientious objection of doctors. The Committee considers this to be an infringement of women's reproductive rights."

Further, the Committee also encouraged the small African country of Burkina Faso to federally subsidize abortion. In 2000, it told the country, "It [the Committee] also recommends that the State party should review its legislation on abortion and provide for coverage by social security."

Under the U.S. Constitution, a treaty that is signed by a president and ratified by the Senate would have the force of law. Smith points out that this means statements made by the CEDAW committee could be used by courts in the U.S. to strike down pro-life laws, including those requiring parental consent, protecting conscientious objectors, and banning partial birth abortion.

"Since legalized abortion is not sufficient to satisfy the extreme views of the CEDAW Committee, common sense laws in the United States and the fifty states will be under attack," says Smith.

"If CEDAW is ratified by the Senate, the United States (U.S.) will not escape their overreaching efforts to impose abortion on our country as an international obligation."

Contact: Matthew Anderson
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: November 18, 2010