California lawmakers reportedly received "goody bags" last week with a message from Planned Parenthood. They included condoms with the words "Don't F*** with us. Don't F*** without us." The bags also included a piece of paper with a short poem:
"Roses are red
Violets are blue
Planned Parenthood promotes safe sex
Now your office can too!"
The idea apparently being that legislators could distribute these condoms to workers in their legislative offices. Senate Republican leader Shannon Grove went to Facebook to express her disappointment on Valentine's day:
“We confirmed several offices received this ‘gift’ from Planned Parenthood, including mine. Really???? This is how PP communicates with members of the state legislature. Good thing I stopped a group of kids from seeing in my office…… #Crass #disgusting #Vulgar.”
Of course, Planned Parenthood's business model is not built on promoting safe sex. It is built on promoting abortion and profiting off vulnerable women who don't feel like they have any better options.
On March 4, the United States Supreme Court will begin hearings in June Medical Services v. Phillips, a case deciding the constitutionality of a Louisiana law requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges to a nearby hospital.
"The Unsafe Abortion Act" requires abortionists to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the facility. The requirement is designed to keep women safe in cases when women are injured during abortion procedures. This would also have the side-effect of ensuring only qualified physicians perform abortions since hospitals review a doctor's experience before granting admitting privileges.
The state of Louisiana originally lost its case in District Court before winning in the Fifth Court of Appeals. It will be the first abortion-related case to be heard by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
Pro-life organization Live Action released a new video in its series titled “Pro-Life Replies” on Wednesday. In this video, former editor in chief of Harvard Journal of Law Josh Craddock argues that the landmark case Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided, and preborn children should have constitutional protection under the 14th amendment.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday that it is seeking nominations for the National Institute of Health Research Ethics Advisory Board. Part of this board's duties will include deciding the ethics of using aborted babies in medical research.
“The Board will be composed of 15 individuals who are not federal employees,” the announcement says. The board will include at least one attorney, ethicist, practicing physician, and theologian. Furthermore, at least one half of the appointments must be “scientists with substantial accomplishments in biomedical or behavioral research.”
“The Ethics Board will advise, consult with, and make recommendations to, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary) regarding the ethics of research involving human fetal tissue (HFT) proposed in NIH grant and cooperative agreement applications and R&D contract Proposals,” the announcement continues. “Recommendations will address whether the Secretary should withhold funds or not withhold funds from a proposed project because of ethical considerations. In providing advice and recommendations on these matters, the Ethics Board will consider, among other things, the use of alternative models, and review and verify the core ethical principles and procedures used in the process to obtain written voluntary informed consent for the donation of the tissue.”
Directions and necessary materials for nominations are included in the announcement. Nominations must be received within the next 30 days.
On February 18, a U.S. district judge ruled in favor of the state of Maryland against the Trump administration's Title X rule restricting taxpayer funding of abortion.
The Protect Life Rule prevents taxpayer funding from going towards family planning facilities that provide abortions, share a location with an abortion provider, or refer patients to abortions. U.S. district court judge Richard Bennett sided with the state of Maryland against the Protect Life Rule, calling it, “arbitrary and capricious, being inadequately justified and objectively unreasonable.”
“The administrative record reflects that literally every major medical organization in the United States has opposed implementation of this rule,” he wrote. “There is almost no professional support for its implementation.”
Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia are also suing against the Protect Life Rule, so even more federal court decisions regarding the Trump administration's ability to restrict taxpayer funding of abortion in this way will come.
Late in January, the Illinois Department of Public Health released abortion statistics for 2018, the first full year since Republican Governor Bruce Rauner signed a bill requiring Medicaid and state insurers to provide abortion coverage. According to these new statistics, over 3,000 more abortions occurred in 2018 than in 2017.
“We knew that abortions would continue to increase as taxpayer funding of abortions took hold, but seeing an increase of nearly 4,000 more Illinois babies aborted is shocking,” Thomas Moore Society Vice President Peter Breen told the National Review.
Pro-life advocates are afraid that these numbers will only increase as Illinois becomes an "abortion hub" for nearby states. As Illinois removes restrictions on abortion and nearby states enact new restrictions, both politicians and abortion providers have stated that they want to provide abortions to women from bordering states.
A member of Canada's refugee board doubted a woman's rape claim and rejected her application to live in Canada because she didn't believe a woman who had been raped would ever choose not to abort.
“(I am) sensitive to the subject of rape, but the claimant’s explanation does not make sense as to why she would keep a child who would remind her of being raped, unless that is not the case,” wrote Sarwanjit Randhawa.
In the applicant's hearing, Randhawa asked her if she ever considered having an abortion, to which she responded that she opposed abortion. She knew it wasn't the child's fault that they were conceived in abortion, and she knew what it was like to live without parents.
None of these explanations were good enough for Randhawa, who has been taught by pro-abortion advocates that abortion isn't just a choice for women who have been raped. To her, it is the appropriate response in all cases.
After reports about the judge's decision spread, the decision was reversed in an appeal.
A measure to add the Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed from Congress to the states by the 92nd Congress in 1972. Now, after a strange vote in Virginia to ratify the expired amendment, the House of Representatives voted to retroactively change the ratification deadline.
The House of Representatives voted 232-183 on Thursday to remove the original deadline. The measure is unlikely to get any farther than that, however. Senate leadership, the Department of Justice, and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg have all stated that the Equal Rights Amendment is dead legislation. Any effort o ratify an amendment like it would need to start from the beginning of the process. Even if the Republican majority in the senate were to support this time-traveling bill, the ERA would be contested heavily in federal courts.
During House debate, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “This [ERA] has nothing to do with the abortion issue.” Douglas D. Johnson, the senior policy advisor for National Right to Life, strongly disagreed. “Pelosi says the ERA has nothing to do with abortion, but her friends at Planned Parenthood, NARAL, NOW, and the National Women’s Law Center have been shouting from the rooftops that it has a great deal to do with abortion.” The Associated Press's David Crary even reported on Jan. 21 that “… Abortion-rights supporters are eager to nullify the [ERA ratification] deadline and get the amendment ratified so it could be used to overturn state laws restricting abortion.”
The amendment simply states, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” A similar amendment to the New Mexico Constitution has been ruled by the state's Supreme Court to require state funding of abortion, and many pro-abortion organizations believe this amendment will be interpreted the same way at the federal level.
The argument in favor of this interpretation is that regulating abortion affects only women because only women become pregnant. If abortion only affects women, then any legislation that restricts abortion is discriminatory. This is, of course, untrue, since both men and women are affected by abortion. Abortion affects children of both sexes as well as their fathers.
An Oklahoma judge ruled last week that the state could ban telemed abortions (at-home abortions using drugs ordered over the internet) and require that abortions only be done by qualified physicians.
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter argued the case with Trust Women Abortion Facility before Oklahoma District Court Judge Natalie Mai, who ruled in favor of existing restrictions.
The Attorney General was grateful for Judge Mai's decision, saying, “This is an extreme lawsuit, seeking to overthrow commonsense safety laws that have been on the books for half a century combined. We appreciate Judge Mai’s thoughtful review and decision, which stays faithful to the U.S. Supreme Court’s repeated assertion that there is ‘no doubt’ that these types of laws are reasonable and constitutional ‘to ensure the safety of the abortion procedure.’”
The Attorney General went on, “Abortion advocates used to say that abortion should be between a woman and her doctor, but now they are attempting to take the doctor out of the room, and out of the picture altogether,” Hunter continued. “We look forward to our continued defense of these laws and others that have been enacted to protect Oklahoma women’s health and safety, as well as the dignity of the unborn.”
On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act to help draw the Democratic support that will be required for the bill to ever be called to a vote.
“This hearing is not about overturning Roe v. Wade,” said Senator Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) in his opening remarks. “In fact, this hearing is not actually about limiting access to abortion at all. This hearing isn’t a debate about third-trimester, or second-trimester, or first-trimester abortion. This hearing is about making sure that every newborn baby has a fighting chance—whether she’s born in a labor and delivery ward or whether she’s born in an abortion clinic.”
The need for federal protection of abortion survivors is becoming increasingly clear, with the governors of Virginia and New York supporting measures to take the right to medical care away from infants who survive abortions.
“Thanks to the governors of New York and Virginia, we now know that pro-abortion groups and legislators believe that it should be legal to kill unborn babies, for absolutely any reason, at any time up to and including the moment of their birth,” said Jennifer Popik, J.D., legislative director of National Right to Life. “Shockingly, they have also decided that the right to abortion extends to neglecting a living infant survivor of an abortion.”
Kalina V.E. Gillum and Braden C. Mull
Credit: WCMH-TV
Kalina V.E. Gillum and Braden C. Mull were indicted on charges of involuntary manslaughter after allegedly botching an in-home abortion via the use of Misoprostol tablets ordered from India.
According to an NBC4 report, Prosecuting Attorney William C. Hayes stated, “Gillum gave birth to a male child in the bathroom of the apartment she shared with Mull.”
“At no time did either one of them ever call 911 or seek emergency medical treatment for the child,” he elaborated in a press release.
The couple was arrested on Saturday and were in court on Monday. Gillum and Mull are both being held on a $150,000 cash bond.
According to WSYX/WTTE, they were complete charges include Involuntary Manslaughter, Child Endangering, Tampering with Evidence and Abuse of Corpse.
After his death, abortionist Ulrich Klopfer was found to have hoarded the bodies of 2,411 aborted children in his Illinois home and one of his cars. While they were unable to be identified by Indiana officials, the bodies were buried Wednesday following a service in Southlawn Cemetery in South Bend, Indiana.
“My office continues to work diligently on the investigation of the circumstances leading to this discovery, and I intend to provide for a dignified burial of these remains in accordance with Indiana law so these remains may finally rest in peace,” said Attorney General Curtis Hill. Hill is scheduled to speak during the service today before these children aborted between the years 2000 and 2003 are finally laid to rest.
Before his license was revoked indefinitely, Klopfer committed abortions in South Bend, Indiana, the town where presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg used to be mayor. He failed to report abortions he performed on two 13-year-old girls to authorities and even performed an abortion on a 10-year-old Illinois girl who was raped by her uncle without reporting anything.
The “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act” passed the West Virginia Senate with a unanimous 32-0 vote on Monday (although two senators were not present). It will soon be sent to West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, who is expected to sign it into law.
The bill was originally introduced in the House of Delegates, where it was passed with an overwhelming and bipartisan vote of 93-5. The House will have to concur with Senate amendments before the bill can be sent to the governor.
This bill will require abortionists to provide babies born alive in spite of an attempted abortion "the same degree" of care that would be provided “to any other child born alive at the same gestational age,” including transportation to a hospital; and mandatory reporting of violations.
Furthermore, abortionists would be investigated and prosecuted for violating this rule and killing a born child, which was previously not possible. Abortion providers which do not report violations would face penalties.
In the Democratic primary debate Friday night, presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders gave an abortion-fueled response to a question asking candidates what their "litmus test" would be for Supreme Court appointees.
"… I will never nominate any person to the Supreme Court or the federal courts in general who is not 100 percent pro-Roe v. Wade," Sanders said.
"Number two: We have got to codify Roe v. Wade into legislation.
Number three: We have to significantly expand funding for Planned Parenthood."
The admission that the legal grounds for abortion are shaky is good to hear from abortion advocates. The Roe. v. Wade decision seems more and more likely to be overturned by Trump-appointed judges as time progresses, however, so legislation is the next logical step for abortion advocates.
All of these statements should be warning signs for pro-lifers. The fact that a presidential candidate's first requirement for federal judges is that they condone the killing of unborn children should be shocking. Furthermore, Senator Sanders wants to "significantly" increase the amount of taxpayer funding that goes towards a private entity whose primary goal is to commit abortions. These stances do not put the needs of vulnerable Americans first.
While Bernie is often seen as the most radical of the Democratic candidates, this stance towards abortion has seemingly become the party norm. Pro-life Democrats don't appear to have anyone to turn towards in the presidential field of candidates.
A referendum that would have allowed Kansas citizens to vote on an amendment declaring abortion is not a constitutional right in the state of Kansas barely failed to reach the required number of votes in the House of Representatives.
A two-thirds majority is required to pass a referendum for a constitutional amendment, but the House fell four votes short in an 80-43 vote on Friday.
The amendment was introduced in response to a Kansas Supreme Court ruling that declared abortion a "medical procedure" and therefore a right under the Kansas constitution. This decision limits the degree to which Kansas legislators can regulate abortion, so pro-life legislators wanted to amend the constitution and preserve state regulations.
Republican Rep. Susan Humphries supported the referendum and argued for it on the House floor, saying, “Isn’t the thought of unregulated abortion repugnant to everyone in this chamber?”
Unless the Kansas Supreme Court ruling is overturned or another referendum passes in the future, abortion will be difficult to regulate in Kansas even if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
The Virginia Senate unanimously passed SB 290 last Tuesday. If it is passed into law, surrogacy contracts that say a surrogate mother must abort if they are pregnant with multiples or a child is diagnosed with a disability will be "void and unenforceable."
Senator Mark Peak, the sponsor of SB 290, said that the bill was both pro-choice and pro-woman. “This is not an antiabortion bill,” he said on the Senate floor. “The choice remains with the pregnant mother.” SB 290 would still allow a surrogate mother to abort if she so chooses.
Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg repeated his support for late-term abortion when questioned by the lone conservative host Meghan McCain on the issue.
McCain wanted Buttigieg to elaborate on a comment he made earlier in his campaign that. “there’s a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath,” a twisted interpretation of a Genesis passage describing how God "breathed into [Adam's] nostrils the breath of life."
“Well, I’m just pointing to the fact that different people will interpret their own moral lights, and for that matter, interpret Scripture differently,” Buttigieg told McCain. “But we live in a country where it is extremely important that no one person [has] to be subjected to some other person’s interpretation of their own religion.”
“...people, even Democrats – and there are a lot of pro-life Democrats in the country – want to know exactly where your line is, because you’ll be the president if you win,” McCain pressed further.
“Right, but my point is that it shouldn’t be up to a government official to draw the line,” Buttigieg responded. “It should be up to the woman who is confronted with the choice.”
“So if a woman wanted to — I don’t know — invoke infanticide after a baby was born, you’d be comfortable with that?” McCain followed up. Buttigieg responded by asking, “does anybody seriously think that’s what these cases are about?”
Buttigieg claimed that “late-term situation” is “by definition” one in which “the woman was expecting to carry the pregnancy to term. Then she gets the most, perhaps, devastating news of her life.”
“I don’t know what to tell them, morally, about what they should do,” he said. “I just know that I trust her and her decision, medically or morally, isn’t going to be any better because the government is commanding her to do it in a certain way.”
Situations in which a family chooses to give up on their child a late stage like this are often due to medical diagnoses of conditions that parents simply don't want to deal with. When parents choose to abort their child due to a medical diagnosis, it is simply a legally sanctioned form of bigotry. People live full lives in spite of genetic conditions such as down syndrome. Children can fight through medical issues to come home with their parents after being born.
These situations might be more difficult both for children and parents, but to write off a life as worthless because of a medical diagnosis is detestable.
The Department of Justice sided with an Ohio law protecting unborn children with disabilities by submitting a filing before the 6th U.S. District Court in Cincinnati on Tuesday.
“Nothing in Ohio’s law creates a substantial obstacle to women obtaining an abortion,” the Department of Justice press release reads, “and nothing in the Constitution or Supreme Court precedent requires States to authorize medical providers to participate in abortions the providers know are based on Down syndrome.”
“Ohio’s Antidiscrimination Law affirms that people with Down syndrome have lives worth living and protecting. The law also protects the medical profession from harm to its integrity and protects women from abortion providers who may seek to pressure them into obtaining an abortion because of Down syndrome,” Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband said. “The federal government has an interest in the equal dignity of those who live with disabilities. Nothing in the Constitution requires Ohio to authorize abortion providers to participate in abortions the providers know are based on Down syndrome.”
The DOJ press release goes on to say “The law also wards against the slippery slope to medical involvement in race- or sex-based abortions,” and "protects women" from “potentially coercive abortion providers who may seek to pressure them into obtaining an abortion because of Down syndrome.”
A Students for Life chapter at California State University finally found its victory against the state institution for its discriminatory denial of student group funds.
In 2017, the University of California rejected Students for Life's funding request to pay for a pro-life speaker. All of the students at the university, including the Students for Life, paid an activity fee that provides funding for these occasions. The University of California rejected this request, while it provided other student organizations which aligned more with faculty beliefs large sums of money. In particular, the Gender Equity Center and the LGBQTA Pride Center received a combined total of $296,498, while no other student organization was granted $6,000.
Alliance defending Freedom (ADF) came to the students' aid and filed a lawsuit on their behalf to fight against the University of California's discriminatory policies in favor of free speech. After federal courts found the University guilty of discrimination, the University will pay over $240,000 in fees.
ADF Legal Counsel Caleb Dalton gave this statement: “Public universities should encourage all students to participate in the free exchange of ideas, not create elaborate and secretive funding schemes to fund their favorite groups while excluding opposing views from equal access.”
The Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth, Texas heard arguments on Feb 4 regarding Tinslee Lewis and the Texas 10-Day Rule.
The Texas rule allows medical facilities to have a medical board to make the decision about whether a person's life is worth trying to save. Even without the agreement of the patient or their loved ones, doctors can choose to withhold treatment after 10 days once they gain permission from this independent board.
Cook Children's Medical Center wanted to pull the plug on Tinslee Lewis's breathing assistance months ago, using the 10-Day Rule as justification. Tinslee's parents appealed this decision, but a judge ruled against them in January. Since then, her legal battle gained widespread media attention and the support of Texas's executive branch. Cook Children's Medical Center received a temporary injunction against its use of the 10-Day Rule on Tinslee, and the Texas Office of Attorney General has come to her aid as well.
Trinity Lewis, Tinslee's mother, gave a statement during the Feb. 4 hearing about her daughter's condition and parents' need to be involved in their children's healthcare:
"Tinslee has not had 'dying spells' or blue spells requiring resuscitation for many months. The last time she had anything like that was right around her last surgery in August. She has not had any 'dying spells' or blue spells since then. A lot of the nurses that care for her tell me that they enjoy caring for her. They pray for Tinslee before their shift is over, they decorate her room, and help me take good care of her. Tinslee enjoys her bubble gum oral care, and she lets us know when she needs a diaper change–but she is not having dying spells, and I do not believe that she is suffering.
Tinslee is a fighter, and as long as she keeps responding to us and showing she is fighting, as her mom I will keep fighting for her.
I hope and pray these new judges will give Tinslee a fair chance. Every parent should have a voice and decision in their child’s care."
The hospital attempted to argue that if Tinslee's breathing assistance was taken away, the hospital would not be at fault for her death. It would instead be the fault of Tinslee's illness. The Office of Attorney General gave the counterargument that treating Tinslee's death in this way would be the same as saying a plane crash was the fault of gravity rather than the pilot or the plane's construction.
Since the temporary injunction against Cook Children's Medical Center, Tinslee has lived past her first birthday.
California lawmakers reportedly received "goody bags" last week with a message from Planned Parenthood. They included condoms with the words "Don't F*** with us. Don't F*** without us." The bags also included a piece of paper with a short poem:
