A woman about to be transferred to a St. Louis Hospital on June 16, 2021, after suffering complications from a second-trimester abortion at Hope Clinic for Women |
August 17, 2021
Granite City Abortion Clinic Hospitalized at Least 3 Patients Since March
84 Lawmakers Accuse Biden Admin. of Pro-Abortion Favoritism in Conscience Rights Enforcement
Earlier this month, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra instructed the DOJ to drop its lawsuit against the University of Vermont Medical Center. The lawsuit was initiated by the Trump administration in 2019
The letter, signed by 21 senators and 63 representatives, reads in part:
“Your handling of this case is a profound miscarriage of justice and a rejection of your commitment to enforce federal conscience laws for Americans of all religious beliefs and creeds — and especially for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals who object to abortion Your actions signal to employers all around the country that they don’t need to comply with the law because your agencies will not enforce it. They also signal that this administration would rather allow consciences to be violated at the behest of the abortion lobby rather [than] enforce the law and protect religious liberty.”
August 16, 2021
Indiana AG Asks 7th Circuit to Hear Appeal of Pro-Life Laws
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita |
"Under the injunction, Indiana is blocked from enforcing physician-only limitations on chemical abortions, Indiana’s ban on chemical abortions via telemedicine, Indiana’s requirement that second trimester abortions can only be done in hospitals, Indiana’s requirement that women be informed about an unborn baby’s ability to feel pain at 20 weeks, Indiana’s requirement that women be informed that human physical life begins at fertilization, and multiple physical requirements for facilities that do abortions."
Rokita is asking the Seventh Circuit to hear the case so that it might be overturned, but he is also requesting the court to place a stay on the lower court's injunction. This would allow Indiana to enforce the laws until the Appeals Court makes its decision.
August 13, 2021
Indiana Judge Strikes Down Multiple Pro-Life Laws
- a restriction preventing abortionists from distributing abortion pills via telemedicine
- a requirement that women visit a physician in-person before they have a chemical abortion
- a requirement that second-trimester surgical abortions occur in hospitals or surgical centers
- a requirement that women seeking abortion are informed that preborn children can feel pain at 20 weeks
- a requirement that women seeking abortion are informed that life begins at fertilization
August 12, 2021
Senate Passes Budget Resolution Supporting Hyde and Weldon Language
Doctors say University of Pittsburgh Statements Suggest Organ Harvesting from Live Babies
Dr. Ronna Jurow, a self-described "pro-choice" ob-gyn who used to work for Planned Parenthood, told Fox News last Thursday that "there's no question" the fetus would be alive during tissue collection. She based her comments on what Pitt told the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the comments that David Seldin, the university's assistant vice chancellor for news, told Fox.
Documents uncovered by Judicial Watch last week show Pitt sought to "develop a pipeline to the acquisition, quality control and distribution of human genitourinary [urinary and genital organs and functions] samples obtained throughout development (6-42 weeks gestation)." According to the NIH, 40 weeks is considered full term.
The documents further revealed that Pitt sought to minimize "ischemia time … to ensure the highest quality biological specimens."
Seldin told Fox News that ischemia is a "[l]ack of blood supply to a part of the body. In this case, ischemia time refers to the time after the tissue collection procedure and before cooling for storage and transport. It does not have an impact on how the procedure is performed, which is always at the discretion of the attending physician and determined with the patient’s health as the top priority."
Pro-life journalist David Daleiden quickly responded to Seldin's statement on Twitter, saying that "[i]f ischemia starts when the organ is cut off from blood, and that happens AFTER the ‘collection’—that means there's bloodflow DURING ‘collection.'" Him and many other pro-lifers are concerned that the research conducted by Pitt required late-term babies to be delivered alive or killed immediately before delivery.
August 11, 2021
Legal Group Criticizes DOJ for Dropping Conscience Rights Lawsuit
Louisiana Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Challenging Parental Consent Law
Louisiana 19th Judicial District Court Judge Timothy Kelley |
Much like Illinois's parental notification requirements, minors in Louisiana have the ability to obtain a judicial bypass to have an abortion without parental consent. As a result, abortion businesses around the country found ways to obtain judicial bypasses for minors. These businesses often "shop" for pro-abortion judges who will sign the necessary paperwork to grant a judicial bypass. Louisiana lawmakers were aware of this, so they passed a law that requires a court that grants a judicial bypass to have jurisdiction within the minor's parish of residence (with some exceptions).
“Once again, the abortion industry ran to the shelter of a court to cling to its mission of abortion-on-demand, this time seeking to defend abortion for minors without any barriers or parental involvement,” said Benjamin Clapper, Executive Director of Louisiana Right to Life. “Judge Kelley rightly dismissed this ridiculous lawsuit and told the abortion businesses they can return to court once they actually have a real plaintiff.”
Angie Thomas, J.D., Associate Director of Louisiana Right to Life, echoed Clapper's sentiment: “We also applaud Judge Kelley for dismissing the case for lack of standing. For years, the abortion industry has challenged the laws that were meant to protect women from that same industry without representing any actual patients. Judge Kelley’s decision hopefully puts a stop to this inappropriate legal tool the abortion industry consistently uses to strike at the will of the people of Louisiana.”
August 10, 2021
Appeals Court Upholds Tennessee Waiting Period Law
The Center for Reproductive Rights filed the lawsuit on behalf of Tennessee abortion businesses. According to the court's majority opinion, they could not identify women who were harmed by having to wait 48 hours before they could get an abortion.
“None of the plaintiffs’ witnesses could name specific women who could not get an abortion because the waiting period pushed them past the cutoff date,” Judge Amul Thapar wrote for the majority in Bristol Regional Women’s Center v. Slatery. “None of the witnesses could identify specific women whose medical conditions caused complications or psychological harm during the waiting period.”
Uniquely, this waiting period law was in effect for five years before District Judge Bernard A. Friedman allowed the lawsuit to be resurrected. It was enforced from 2015 until Oct. 2020, which meant that both sides could use data collected during that period to argue their points in court. The appellate court noted that between 2015 and 2020, abortion rates remained steady.
“It is one thing to predict that the sky will fall tomorrow,” the ruling states. “It’s quite another thing to maintain that the sky fell five years ago for women seeking abortions when the numbers tell us otherwise.”
European Court of Human Rights Rules that Life Support can be Removed from UK 2-Year-Old
Alta Fixler with her family |
August 9, 2021
Appeals Court Upholds Indiana Abortion Complications Reporting Law
August 6, 2021
IFRL Legislation Page Updated
photo credit: Keith Ewing / Flickr |
The IFRL's legislation page has been updated in preparation for the upcoming fall veto session. Be sure to visit for information on pro-abortion and pro-life bills that legislators might push. We will be sure to update you with more information when it becomes available.
You can visit our periodically updated legislation page by clicking here or going to ifrl.org and clicking "legislation" on the right-hand side.
Report Reveals HHS Funneled Millions of Dollars to Fetal Tissue Bank
The University of Pittsburgh project sought to "develop a pipeline to the acquisition, quality control and distribution of human genitourinary [urinary and genital organs and functions] samples obtained throughout development (6-42 weeks gestation)." Forty-two weeks is the same as ten months, which is a very late gestational stage.
Judicial Watch obtained documents showing Pitt's interest in harvesting fetal organs for a project called the GenitoUrinary Development Molecular Anatomy Project (GUDMAP).
Pitt came under fire earlier this year for another project that involved grafting scalps harvested from aborted babies and grafting them onto mice. Human hair began to grow from the bodies of these modified mice.
The documents obtained by Judicial Watch show that Pitt was discussing plans to minimize warm ischemic time, or the amount of time that an organ retains its body temperature after losing blood flow. The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) argued on Tuesday that this, alongside the fact that the tissue was harvested after labor-induced abortions, suggests that these babies could be delivered alive.
"If the fetus’ heartbeat and blood circulation continue in a labor induction abortion for harvesting organs, it means the fetus is being delivered while still alive and the cause of death is the removal of the organs," the CMP wrote in a press release.
CMP founder David Daleiden said on Tuesday, "The NIH grant application for just one of Pitt’s numerous experiments with aborted infants reads like an episode of American Horror Story … People are outraged by such disregard for the lives of the vulnerable. Law enforcement and public officials should act immediately to bring the next Kermit Gosnell to justice under the law."
August 5, 2021
Parents of 2-Year-Old Girl Await UK Court's Decision on Removing Child's Life Support
UK Supreme Court Building photo credit: Cary Bass-Deschenes / Flickr |
Biden DOJ Drops Suit Against Vermont Medical Center that Allegedly Forced Nurse to Participate in Abortion
August 4, 2021
New EACH Act Aims to Codify Roe v. Wade and Expand Abortion Funding
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) Senate Sponsor of the EACH Act |
Pro-Life Senators Urge Biden Administration to Withdraw Proposed Abortion-Funding Rule
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), one of the 26 pro-life senators co-authoring a letter to HHS Secretary Becerra |
August 3, 2021
House Passes Spending Bills Without Hyde Protections
August 2, 2021
Over 200 Congressmembers File Brief Supporting Mississippi in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
- Current Supreme Court precedent is inconsistent regarding whether states can place limitations on pre-viability abortions. The legislators wrote, “Some federal courts have interpreted Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992) as creating a bright-line rule that forbids lawmakers from restricting previability abortions in any way, regardless of the strength of the interests at stake.” The brief notes that the Court created an exception to this rule, stating, “the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Act this Court upheld in Gonzales v. Carhart without regard for the viability line.”
- The American public supports pro-life protections. “The second-trimester regulation embodied in Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act is strongly supported by the American public,” reads the brief. This is echoed by a Marist poll conducted earlier this year. 76% of respondents to that poll wanted abortion to be either banned or limited to the first three months of pregnancy.
- States, through their legislators and electors, can be trusted to make laws governing abortion. The Congress members' brief reads, “Mississippi's case provides the Court a chance to release its vise grip on abortion politics, as Congress and the States have shown that they are ready and able to address the issue in ways that reflect Americans’ varying viewpoints and are grounded in the science of fetal development and maternal health.”
- The legistlators' brief reads that states, “have expressed the desire to protect life through a burgeoning number of laws enacted to further the States’ important interests in protecting women from dangerous late-term abortion, ending the destruction of human life based on sexism, racism, or ableism, upholding the integrity of the medical profession against the barbaric practice of dismembering human beings in the womb, and protecting preborn infants from the horrific pain of such abortions.”
- Finally, the brief argues, “It is long overdue for this Court to return lawmaking to legislators.” It then quotes a dissent by Justice Scalia in a 1988 Supreme Court Case: “The most reliable objective signs [of societal views] consist of the legislation that the society has enacted. It will rarely if ever be the case that the Members of this Court will have a better sense of the evolution in views of the American people than do their elected representatives.”
July 30, 2021
Pelosi's Archbishop Says Devout Catholics Can't Condone Abortion
Salvatore J. Cordileone, Archbishop of San Francisco |
“Let me repeat: no one can claim to be a devout Catholic and condone the killing of innocent human life, let alone have the government pay for it,” he told CNA. “The right to life is a fundamental -- the most fundamental -- human right, and Catholics do not oppose fundamental human rights.”
At a press conference on July 22, Pelosi said that she supported taxpayer funding of abortion because it is “an issue of health, of many women in America, especially those in lower-income situations and in different states.” She mentioned her faith during the conference as well, saying,
“as a devout Catholic and mother of five in six years, I feel that God blessed my husband and me with our beautiful family, five children in six years almost to the day, but... it’s not up to me to dictate that that’s what other people should do, and it [funding of abortion in Medicaid] is an issue of fairness and justice for poorer women in our country.”
Cordileone responded on Thursday,
“To use the smokescreen of abortion as an issue of health and fairness to poor women is the epitome of hypocrisy: what about the health of the baby being killed? What about giving poor women real choice, so they are supported in choosing life?
This would give them fairness and equality to women of means, who can afford to bring a child into the world. It is people of faith who run pro-life crisis pregnancy clinics; they are the only ones who provide poor women life-giving alternatives to having their babies killed in their wombs.”