Mike Pompeo: US May Never Fund World Health Organization Again

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr

In an interview on Fox News, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the United States may never restore funding to the United Nations World Health Organization.

“It may be the case that the United States can never return to underwriting, having US taxpayer dollars go to the WHO,” he said. He later said that the administration would see if another organization could potentially replace the WHO.

This comes after the US suspended its funding for the organization, which normally receives $400 million US tax dollars annually (15% of the WHO's budget).

The WHO has been accused of helping China perform a coverup of the true dangers of COVID-19. The organization criticized the Trump administration's travel ban and disregarded signs of a dangerous outbreak originating in China.

Furthermore, the WHO declared that abortions should be an essential part of healthcare during the pandemic; showing that the United Nations continues to put its ideology before the well-being of others.

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New York Issues and Later Rescinds Do-Not-Resuscitate Guideline

Photo Credit: Ben Roffer / Flickr

The state of New York issued guidelines on April 17 that emergency responders not attempt to resuscitate any person in cardiac arrest. After ample criticism from the public and from emergency responders, that guideline has been rescinded.

A New York State Department of Health issued a memo stated the directive was, “necessary during the COVID-19 response to protect the health and safety of EMS providers by limiting their exposure, conserve resources, and ensure optimal use of equipment to save the greatest number of lives.’’

First responders normally attempt to provide 20 minutes of CPR to a patient in cardiac arrest. If the directive were left in place, some first responders might have let people die without making an effort to revive them.

“Our job is to bring patients back to life,” said Oren Barzilay, head of the city union including EMTs and paramedics. “This guideline takes that away from us.”

The New York Department of Health said in a statement that, “... the recommendation of the Bureau of Emergency Medical Services, and reflected ‎nationally recognized minimum standards. However, they don’t reflect New York’s standards and for that reason DOH Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker has ordered them to be rescinded.”

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Abortions Resume in Texas with Other Elective Surgeries

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott
Photo Credit: WTTC / Flickr

After a lengthy legal battle over the fact that abortions were included in Texas's ban on elective surgical procedures, they are once again available in Texas. The state is starting to make elective surgeries available to the public once again, which has the side-effect of opening abortion clinics. The clinics continue to push the narrative that they, and the women they serve, were treated unfairly by the temporary ban. The fact that they still get to open alongside other non-essential surgical procedures undercuts this narrative.

Planned Parenthood Texas Votes executive director Dyana Limon-Mercado told the Texas Tribune that, “[The] past month has been an unthinkable nightmare for Texans who have been forced to travel out of state just to access essential health care, if they’re able to access care at all.”

Citizens in many states haven't been able to access services they might want during COVID-19 shutdowns. Planned Parenthood's repeated claims that abortion should be an exception to the rule and apparent endorsement of interstate travel for the sake of abortion is selfish and disturbing. Abortion advocates are truly taking advantage of the COVID-19 outbreak to make political points when governors who place these temporary bans are only trying to keep people safe.

As much as pro-life advocates want abortion to end, pro-life governors will end these temporary bans as they open up their states for commerce once again. Governors are not legislating from their offices like the Supreme Court did in its Roe v. Wade ruling, and a true challenge to Roe v. Wade will come through the courts.

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George Soros PAC Gives $1 Million to Pro-Abortion NARAL to Defeat Pro-Life Politicians

George Soros
Photo Credit: Niccolò Caranti / Wikimedia Commons

A George Soros-funded PAC named "Democracy PAC" gave $1 million to the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) Freedom Fund according to the fund's quarterly report with the Federal Election Commission earlier this month.

The NARAL says it will be spending $35 million to defeat Donald Trump and other pro-life politicians during the 2020 election cycle. The pro-abortion organization said it wanted to focus on persuading women and other groups who see reproductive rights as a major concern. It recently released an ad claiming the president and other pro-life politicians put "ideology over science" whenever they restrict abortion in any way.

The ad criticizes pro-life governors for putting temporary restrictions on abortion during the COVID-19 pandemic; claiming that they are simply trying to take advantage of the situation rather than save lives.

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Appeals Court Upholds Arkansas Temporary Surgical Abortion Ban

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge
Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr

Three judges on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals overruled a district judge's temporary restraining order against the Arkansas Department of Health's ban on surgical abortions for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On April 3, the Arkansas Department of Health issued a directive requiring that all non-essential surgeries be postponed. District Judge Kristine Baker put a temporary restraining order on the directive, specifically creating an exemption for surgical abortions. Now, a three-judge panel from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has dissolved the temporary restraining order.

A statement from the Arkansas Attorney General's office:

“With the Eighth Circuit’s decision, there is no longer a judge-made exemption for surgical abortions. Every non-medically necessary surgery must be postponed. The Eighth Circuit also confirmed the procedurally suspect nature of allowing abortion providers to hand-pick the judge that hear their cases.”

“[The Eighth Circuit] agreed with Arkansas that the district court committed a clear abuse of discretion in creating a carve-out from state law for surgical abortions,” said Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge.

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5th Circuit Court of Appeals Defeats Second District Court Restraining Order Against Texas

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's executive order temporarily banning non-essential surgical procedures includes abortion to help medical professionals conserve equipment like medical masks and stop COVID-19 from spreading in cramped abortion clinics. That order has been heavily contested by pro-abortion forces in federal courts, making its way up to the supreme court (decision pending).

District Court Judge Lee Yeakel attempted to undercut the higher courts by creating an exception to the order for chemical abortions (abortions completed using the abortion pill regiment), but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals overruled him on Monday:

We are persuaded by Petitioners’ arguments that the district court, in the April 9 TRO [Temporary Restraining Order], disregarded our mandate in Abbott II. The court again “fail[ed] to apply . . . the framework governing emergency exercises of state authority during a public health crisis, established over 100 years ago in Jacobson v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts. … Moreover, the court again second-guessed the basic mitigation strategy underlying GA-09 (that is, the concept of “flattening the curve”), and also acted without knowing critical facts such as whether, during this pandemic, abortion providers do (or should) wear masks or other protective equipment when meeting with patients. Those errors led the district court to enter an overbroad TRO that exceeds its jurisdiction, reaches patently erroneous results, and usurps the state’s authority to craft emergency public health measures “during the escalating COVID-19 pandemic.” 

Abortion advocates claim that chemical abortions are safe and should become more available during the COVID-19 outbreak so women can access abortion while social distancing. These people disregard the reasons that the federal government requires women to see doctors and receive a prescription before buying abortion pills.

Women receive ultrasounds to ensure that chemical abortion is a "safe" abortion method for the woman. If a pregnant woman has a condition known as ectopic pregnancy, in which their unborn child is positioned outside of the uterus, chemical abortion has a high risk of complications such as hemorrhage which can lead to death.

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Illinois Reproductive Health Act Fact 5: Abortionists Won't be Disciplined for Performing "Abortions" on Women Who Aren't Pregnant

Due to changes made in the Reproductive Health Act, doctors will no longer be subject to any punishment by the state for performing an "abortion" on a woman who isn't actually pregnant. Doctors could previously lose their license for such conduct, but now they are free to conduct themselves in a manner that the law previously called "willful and wanton." Learn more by clicking the link below:

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

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UN Official Criticizes "Liberal Eugenics" in Annual Report

Catalina Devandas Aguilar

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

Here are some excerpts from the report:

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

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

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

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

Click here to read her full report.

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

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

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

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

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Trump Administration Issues Guidelines Against Discriminatory Healthcare Rationing

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

An excerpt from the guidelines states:

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

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

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Michigan Gov. Claims Abortions are "Life-Sustaining"

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

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

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

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

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

Adrian Batts
Photo Credit: Macon County State's Attorney

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

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

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

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

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

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

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren
Credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alabama Temporary Abortion Ban Blocked by Federal Judge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Angela Primachenko
Photo from Instagram

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

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

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

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

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

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