Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge |
July 28, 2021
Arkansas AG Files Supreme Court Brief Defending Ban on Down Syndrome Discriminatory Abortions
WHO Updates Guidelines to Promote DIY Chemical Abortions
The new WHO guidelines promote the self-administration of injectable contraception, emergency contraception, and abortion pills—including "in countries where abortion is illegal or restricted."
The WHO has long promoted abortion across the globe and interfered with the beliefs of pro-life countries. International aid from the WHO often includes tools and drugs used during abortions.
Writing for the pro-abortion organization Women First Digital, Lilian Muchoki said that the WHO guidelines are “based on a dream that abortion will be de-medicalized, the same way that contraception and other options are de-medicalized.”
Self-managed abortions can be dangerous not only to unborn children but also to their mothers. If the mother has an undiagnosed pregnancy condition, incorrectly dates her pregnancy, or doesn't correctly follow the process of the abortion-pill regimen (which is especially possible when a doctor is not involved), she is at increased risk of life-threatening complications such as hemorrhage.
July 27, 2021
Mississippi AG Files Brief Asking Supreme Court to Overturn Roe v. Wade
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch |
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization is the abortion lobby's challenge to a Missippi law banning most elective abortions after 15 weeks. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case this fall, and many pundits believe that this case could cause the Supreme Court to reconsider the standing precedent on abortion.
Fitch argued in her brief that the Roe and Casey decisions created “a special-rules regime for abortion jurisprudence that has left these cases out of step with other Court decisions and neutral principles of law applied by the Court.”
“As a result, state legislatures, and the people they represent, have lacked clarity in passing laws to protect legitimate public interests, and artificial guideposts have stunted important public debate on how we, as a society, care for the dignity of women and their children,” Fitch said.
“It is time for the Court to set this right and return this political debate to the political branches of government,” she wrote.
New Bipartisan Bill Introduced to End Military Policy Encouraging Abortion
The Candidates Afforded Dignity, Equality and Training Act of 2021, or CADET Act, is written to amend policies that encourage pregnant women to abort their children. The current policy at military academies is that students can't have dependents. This leaves women who become pregnant with two options: either dropping out of school or aborting their children. If a woman drops out of school rather than choosing abortion, she will be forced to repay the government for the education she received, since she will not be able to serve in the military.
The CADET Act would allow women who get pregnant to take a year off from school to give birth and recover. They will then be allowed to return and graduate a year later than planned. While the woman finishes school, another person would be named as a temporary guardian for the child.
“Under our current system, cadets who become pregnant must either sign away the rights to their child, get an abortion, pay devastating financial responsibilities, or leave the academy altogether,” Cruz said in a press release, adding,
“I am proud to introduce this crucial legislation ensuring cadets in military academies can retain legal guardianship of their children without unnecessary burdens, and most importantly, keep young military families together. The CADET Act is a commonsense step to ensure the brave young women of our Armed Forces have the right level of support to continue their academy training and go on to fulfill their future service as commissioned officers while raising their family.”
July 26, 2021
District Judge Issues Injunction Against Arkansas Abortion Ban
U.S. District Judge Kristine G. Baker |
The Unborn Child Protection Act bans almost all abortions in the state, with an exception to save the life of the mother. When the law was passed, Senate sponsor Jason Rapert said that part of the law's intent was to directly challenge the Supreme Court precedent of Roe v. Wade.
In a statement to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Rapert said, “Where is the conscience of the court? Judge Kristine Baker never fails to strike down pro-life laws in Arkansas. …She’s basing her decision on the same type of claptrap we always hear which ends up in the killing of unborn babies in our state and in the nation.”
The pro-abortion challengers to the law predictably include Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and the Center for Reproductive Rights.
July 23, 2021
Texas Gov. Greg Abbot Signs Bill to Ban Abortion if Roe v. Wade is Overturned
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott |
The Human Life Protection Act would take effect 30 days after Roe v. Wade is overturned or if a new court ruling allowed states to individually prohibit abortions. The law includes exceptions for cases when the mother's life is at risk or she is at risk of a “substantial impairment of major bodily function."
According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, Texas is the 12th state to pass a "trigger law" banning abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned. The other states are Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah.
The most precious freedom of all is life itself.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) July 20, 2021
Today I signed #HB1280. Under this law, the moment Roe v. Wade is overturned abortions will be outlawed in Texas.
Texas will always foster a culture of life.
Thanks to @AngelaPaxtonTX & @VoteGiovanni. pic.twitter.com/CgIjge0dHA
IL Congresswoman Mary Miller Introduces Protecting Life on College Campus Act
“Chemical abortions are the future the abortion issue is lobbying for, and I know that as a mother of five daughters, my girls and their peers are the most vulnerable to the chemical abortion industry. The abortion industry does not advocate for women, as they constantly claim to do. They exploit young women but leave them to deal with the consequences and severe potential side effects all on their own,” said Miller. “American taxpayers should not be forced by Democrats to fund the abortion providers in this country directly or indirectly. The Protecting Life on College Campus Act stands up for the many Americans who share a deeply held moral opposition to ending life in the womb.”
The bill was created in response to a new California law mandating that public universities make abortion pills available on their campuses. The law takes effect in 2023, and it will affect all 34 public universities in California.
The pro-life law introduced on Tuesday would require colleges to submit annual reports to the U.S. Secretary of Education and the Secretary of Health and Human Services showing that they do not provide abortion drugs.
July 22, 2021
FRC Creates New Website Tracking Taxpayer Funding of Abortion
Titled, "America's Direct Deposit to Planned Parenthood," the analysis uses information from the Government Accountability Office and Planned Parenthood's annual reports to show how many taxpayer dollars have been funneled into Planned Parenthood organizations. Between 1994 and 2019, Planned Parenthood has reported performing 7,059,206 abortions and receiving $9.7 billion in total taxpayer funding. Over that period of time, the annual taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood has quadrupled from $163.1 million in 1994 to $618.1 million in 2019.
Over the period between 1994 and 2018, Planned Parenthood's share of the total abortions in the US has increased from 10.5% to 55.8%.
As the US House of Representatives considers a budget bill that doesn't include the protections of the Hyde Amendment, Planned Parenthood stands to gain even more funding from taxpayers.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said:
"Planned Parenthood has become America's abortion giant, and it has been taxpayer dollars that has bankrolled the baby-killing industry. Planned Parenthood now performs more abortions annually than every other abortion supplier in America. Far from escaping its racist, eugenicist roots, it increasingly targets minority babies by locating the vast majority of its abortion facilities near black or Hispanic neighborhoods. Planned Parenthood does not deserve billions in government funding. Even pro-choice Americans have long agreed that taxpayers should not be forced to fund abortions. The time has come to put an end to the forced partnership between taxpayers and Planned Parenthood," concluded Perkins."
20 States File Brief Defending South Carolina Heartbeat Law
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall |
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed the Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act into law in February, and pro-abortion groups filed a lawsuit against it the following day. District Judge Mary Geiger Lewis placed an injunction blocking the law's enforcement soon afterward.
The law requires abortionists to provide ultrasounds for mothers before committing an abortion, and it bans abortionists from aborting a child whose heartbeat is detected during that ultrasound. Abortionists who violate the law could face felony charges, fines, and jail time. The law includes exceptions for medical emergencies, rape, incest, and fetal diagnoses.
South Carolina appealed the district court's injunction last week, arguing that the pro-abortion organizations lacked the legal standing to bring a lawsuit. South Carolina also argued that only the heartbeat provision (not the ultrasound requirements) should be blocked by the injunction, since that is the provision being challenged in court.
“South Carolina’s fetal heartbeat law was struck down in an error-filled district court opinion,” Marshall said in a press release. “Although Planned Parenthood and the other plaintiffs challenged only the law’s regulation of abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, the district court enjoined the law in its entirety — including portions of the law that dozens of other states already have and regularly enforce.”
July 21, 2021
Bioethicists Propose Time-Delayed Suicide Implants for Dementia Patients
In a recent article for Hastings Center Report, the world's most prominent bioethics journal, bioethicists proposed that dementia patients could be implanted with "advance directive implants" or ADIs.
The article, titled "Ending One's Life in Advance," reads:
"The ADI would require extensive engineering and may not be feasible with current technologies. Still, we suspect it could become feasible in the near future. We imagine the ADI as something like a computerized subdermal implant containing a lethal dose of a medication or combination of medications. Release of these medications would occur rapidly after a predetermined interval or after some specific event had occurred. The ADI would likely require a long-lasting battery, computerized control, and a pump or microfluidic mechanism."
Assisted suicide, including suicide with ADIs, involves the intentional killing of one human being by another. Allowing the idea of assisted suicide to become a normal part of our culture dehumanizes those with conditions like dementia, and that should not be allowed to happen. Regardless of their circumstances, human lives are valuable, and they should be cared for.
Washington Church Files Brief with 9th Circuit Over Abortion Coverage Mandate
July 20, 2021
Pro-Abortion Groups File Unusual Class-Action Lawsuit Over Texas Heartbeat Law
The Texas heartbeat law, which goes into effect on Sept. 1, allows individuals to file lawsuits against abortionists or anybody who aids them in aborting an unborn child after the child's heartbeat would be detectable. This is different from normal pro-life laws, which are enforced directly by states.
The pro-abortion coalition didn't just file a lawsuit against the state to challenge the constitutionality of the heartbeat law. The Texan reported that the "unusual lawsuit" was filed “against the Texas Medical Board, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, the entire Texas court system, and one individual man: Mark Lee Dickson, founder of the ‘Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn Initiative.'”
Dickson is a pastor and the director of Right to Life East Texas. He helps cities throughout Texas and the rest of the country become sanctuary cities for the unborn. These cities enact ordinances banning abortion within city limits. He was included as a defendant for posting on Facebook that he is willing to file lawsuits against abortionists if they violate the heartbeat law.
In a statement to Live Action News, Dickson said,
“Does the sound of our heartbeat mean more outside the womb than it did when we were inside our mother’s womb? Are we really any more human than the babies we see on the ultrasound monitors? Texans cannot ignore the facts. We all came from our mother’s womb. Many of us, in bringing our own children into this world, have heard the heartbeat and have seen the 2D, 3D, and 4D ultrasounds. How could we ignore those unmistakable evidences of life? This is, most certainly, a fight worth fighting.”
Chicago Public Schools to Give Condoms to Children in Grades 5-12
"Working for a non-abortion center made it clear to me that contraception and abortion are two sides of the same coin. One does not exist without the other… Contraception creates a market for abortion by promoting promiscuity and providing men and women a false sense of security against an unintended pregnancy. The more promiscuous people are (especially young people), the more likely they’ll become pregnant.The more people use birth control and adopt a contraceptive mentality, the higher the odds that they’ll seek an abortion. Because, let’s face it, if they’re using birth control, a child is not part of the ‘plan.’ Abortion is the backup, so to speak, for contraceptive failure, misuse, or lack of self-control."
July 19, 2021
Appeals Court Grants Rehearing of Missouri Discriminatory Abortion Ban
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt had already appealed this case to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Eighth Circuit's decision to rehear it overrides that. In Schmitt's appeal to the Supreme Court, he wrote:
“Unborn children with Down syndrome are aborted at epidemic rates, In the face of this genocidal crisis, Missouri and at least 11 other states have enacted laws restricting the eugenic abortion of the disabled, especially those with Down syndrome. In 2019, this Court declined to review the Seventh Circuit’s decision invalidating one of these laws — Indiana’s — because no circuit split yet existed. Since then, a clear and well-developed split of authority has emerged.”
This decision may also affect an Arkansas law that could be headed to the Supreme Court. Briefs for the rehearing will be heard on July 23.
July 16, 2021
Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Kentucky AG's Petition to Defend Dismemberment Abortion Ban
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron |
Kentucky's House Bill 454 was signed into law by former Gov. Matt Bevin in 2018, but it never took effect. It was quickly enjoined and struck down by U.S District Judge Joseph McKinley Jr. when pro-abortion organizations filed a lawsuit. After that ruling, pro-abortion Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (who recently won an election) declined to defend the law.
Pro-life Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron petitioned the Supreme Court in March 2021 to be given the right to defend the law as the state's duly elected attorney general. The court accepted his petition, and it will hear arguments on October 12, 2021.
Attorney General Cameron is asking the Supreme Court:
Whether a state attorney general vested with the power to defend state law should be permitted to intervene after a federal court of appeals invalidates a state statute when no other state actor will defend the law.
Pro-Abortion Orgs Plan to Continue Distributing Pills Online Even if Roe v. Wade is Overturned
On its own, the overturning of Roe v. Wade would not make abortion illegal. It would simply allow states to make the determination regarding whether abortion will be allowed within their borders. If the Supreme Court chooses to overturn the landmark decision, however, pro-life states will likely pass laws outlawing abortion, including the distribution of abortion pills. Several pro-abortion organizations plan to thwart those regulations (as they did when the FDA banned the mail distribution of abortion pills) by making abortion pills available to order online.
A recent article by Politico highlighted several organizations preparing to keep abortion available in the circumstance that states outlaw abortion or online abortion pill distribution. The Mountain Access Brigade, Aid Access, the Yellowhammer Fund, and Plan C are just a few of these pro-abortion groups.
“If Roe goes down — we hope it won’t — there are always going to be ways to access abortion,” Plan C co-founder Elisa Wells told Politico. “Plan C included, we’re already working on alternative ways to access the pills.”
July 15, 2021
Protection Order Filed Against Kansas Abortion Facility Guard
Trust Women security guard Carl Swinney approaching pro-life activists with papers he called "contaminated material" |
Jennifer McCoy, the pro-life activist targeted by Swinney, took the threat seriously because he had harassed, threatened, and assaulted her in the past. His previous acts against her include giving her a bag of vomit from a sick patient, putting his hand on his gun and threatening to use it against her and other pro-lifers, and twisting McCoy's arm to create a long-lasting injury.
McCoy had a protection order filed against Swinney for these actions, but it expired in May of this year.
“His behavior has always been erratic and threatening for the twenty years I have known him,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “The clinic’s owner and administrator, Julie Burkhart, is aware of his dangerous behavior, and I believe she not only tolerates it, but encourages it.”
The most recent incident occurred when Swinney took papers that had flown off a table McCoy and other pro-life activists were using to help women considering abortion. He took them inside the abortion facility and later gave them to McCoy, saying that he made sure they were contaminated.
Swinney is scheduled to appear in court on July 22, 2021.
July 14, 2021
Biden Appoints Former Population Council Director Stephanie Psaki to HHS Position
Psaki served as the deputy director of the Population Council's Girl Innovation Research and Learning (GIRL) Center. The Population Council is known for its eugenic agenda focusing on population control.
The Population Council takes credit for bringing the abortion pill to the United States and granting Danco Laboratories an exclusive license to manufacture and market the pill here. Its past leaders have been known for their membership in groups such as the American Eugenics Society and involvement in pro-abortion advocacy. Council members have even advocated for policies as extreme as forced sterilization.
In 2019, Psaki contributed to a report that claimed “access to modern contraception, safe and legal abortion” is among the “suite of SRH [Sexual and Reproductive Health] services, products, and information” which are “critical to girls’ and women’s health, education, and participation in society and the economy.”
The report suggested that governments should remove all barriers to abortion, even for adolescents. This includes laws requiring parental involvement. It recommended that policymakers, “Liberalize abortion laws to enable all adolescent girls and women to obtain safe abortion services. Remove restrictions involving parental or partner consent to access abortion services and family planning methods….”
It went on to recommend that governments “guarantee the availability of affordable, accessible, and appropriate youth-friendly SRH services—including a wide range of discreet and on-demand contraceptive options… safe abortion and post-abortion care, maternal and newborn care free of stigma, discrimination, coercion, and violence.”
Psaki yet another in the long list of pro-abortion Biden appointees.
Study Reveals Late-Term Abortionists Experimented on Hundreds of Women
Dr. Carmen Landau |
Atkins visited SWO in 2017 to have an induced abortion. This would involve an abortionist injecting feticide into the preborn baby's heart, and then returning several days later to deliver the dead baby. Atkins was six months pregnant at the time.
Documents obtained last year by Abortion on Trial revealed that Atkins was given multiple doses of powerful medications and sedatives in the days leading up to her death. Staffers did not monitor her condition and continued to give her the drugs even after she started having difficulty breathing.
New documents obtained just last week by Abortion on Trial reveal even more, however. Carmen Landau and Shelley Sella, two abortionists who work at SWO, were conducting experiments on hundreds of women by administering the abortion drug mifepristone during a late-term abortion. Mifepristone is the first part of the two-pill abortion pill regimen, but that method of abortion is only used for early stages of pregnancy. Landau and Sella were attempting to incorporate the pill into their induced abortion method to find out if it would help them complete late-term abortions more quickly.
501 women participated in this study. Half of them were given mifepristone during their induction abortions, while the other half were not. All of these women were past 24 weeks pregnant, and 48 of them were minors. Atkins's death was included in the medical research article published after the study was completed.
The medical examiner for the research article said that Atkins died after suffering pulmonary thromboembolism, or blood clots in the lungs. Her autopsy report does not indicate any signs of pulmonary thromboembolism, and emails from University of New Mexico Hospital staff disagree with this cause of death.
“Everything about her course was consistent with septic abortion→ refractory septic cardiomyopathy [heart failure due to infection] → death,” emergency medician physician Trenton Wray wrote. Dr. Gary Hatch agreed, writing “Second review reveals no segmental or larger emboli. There just simply isn’t PE [pulmonary embolism]… There was no massive PE present at the time of scan. Period… I am also confident there was no segmental or greater PE.”
Sepsis is a known side effect of the abortion pill regimen. Both pills were given to Atkins before her death. The study concluded that there was "no perceived benefit" to using abortion pills during induction abortions.