Pro-Life Page

5:11 PM, APR 10, 2015| CASSY FIANO| LiveAction news

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback just signed into state law a bill that bans the “dismemberment” abortion method known as the D&E: dilation and evacuation. It is the first ban of its kind in the nation.

While abortion is always a violent and grisly procedure, the D&E is especially so. These abortions are typically performed in the second trimester, and the baby is literally ripped apart limb by limb. It is so horrific that, when the technique was first refined, a paper spoke ofthe emotional distress it caused for the doctors who performed it.

Of course, the abortion lobby is furious over the ban. Senator David Haley compared the ban to slavery; Planned Parenthood called it “dangerous” and “outrageous”.

But perhaps the most offensive reaction to the ban was that of Dr. David Grimes, at RH Reality Check. Grimes’ response was to compare pregnancy to cancer:

Rather glib, eh? A preborn baby is just a problem to be taken care of. And a violent D&E abortion is the solution. And apparently, a preborn baby is just like cancer. Abortion, a procedure that always, always takes a life, is the same thing as a procedure that is sometimes necessary to save a life.

Those are some impressive mental gymnastics there.

It’s worth pointing out, though, that there’s a little problem with the cognitive dissonance Grimes is enjoying. Pregnancy is nothing like cancer — it doesn’t just swoop down and mysteriously happen to unsuspecting women the way that cancer does. Women who are diagnosed with cancer have no choice in whether or not they get it; there isn’t an action they take that they know could lead to becoming afflicted with cancer.

For the overwhelming majority of women who become pregnant, though, it happens because of an action that they willfully chose. As much as abortion advocates like to talk about being “pro-choice”, they like to ignore that most women who become pregnant chose to take that risk. It is offensive in the extreme to compare an unplanned pregnancy to cancer.

Cancer is a disease that will spread through a person’s body and slowly, painfully take their life. A baby comes into being due to the actions that two people choose to take, and is the beginning of a new life. It also says a lot about how much the abortion lobby needs to dehumanize the preborn child, and attack its very existence — how dare that baby come into being through absolutely no fault of his or her own?! — in order to justify their sick and disgusting arguments.

The two, cancer and pregnancy, could not be more different, yet abortion advocates have no problem with shamelessly trotting out this despicable comparison in order to further their pro-abortion agenda. And yet they want to call pro-lifers the extremists? Please

by Sarah Zagorski | LifeNews.com | 4/9/15 9:40 AM

The pro-abortion American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing the Obama administration for documents it says will show that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is restricting access to abortions for unaccompanied immigrant children.

In February 2014, the USCCB objected to a new regulation proposed by the Obama administration that would require contractors to provide access to contraception and abortion for unaccompanied immigrant children who have been raped.  In an official letter, the USCCB as well as World Relief, the National Association of Evangelicals and Catholic Relief Services, explained that the new regulation violates religious liberty, specifically the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

They wrote, “There is little question that a government requirement to provide or refer for items or procedures to which an organization has a religious and moral objection would impose a ‘substantial burden’ on its exercise of religion.” Additionally, the USCCB said they were opposed to transferring teenagers to other groups that would do abortions because they believe it still enables actions that violate their religious beliefs.

Brigitte Amiri, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU, disagrees and said, “The bishops want to take millions of dollars in government contracts, but at the same time, they don’t want to comply with the terms of the contracts.”

However, the bishops said, “We believe that, through practical discussions, we can find a resolution that allows the government to fulfill its obligation to care for unaccompanied children, while also respecting the religious and moral beliefs of faith-based organization that, to date, have provided such critical care for this vulnerable population.”

As LifeNews previously reported, during the Bush administration the USCCB received a five-year $19 million grant to help victims of sex trafficking. But unfortunately, the Obama administration has refused to protect religious liberty and denied the bishops the renewal of their grant because they would not refer the women for abortions.

After the grant was denied, Sister Mary Ann Walsh suggested that the U.S Department of Health discriminates against Catholics. She said, “There seems to be a new unwritten reg at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). It’s the ABC Rule, Anybody But Catholics. The program worked well on the ground but not so well for distant administrators promoting the abortion and contraceptive agenda, who bristle at the fact that in accord with church teaching, USCCB won’t facilitate taking innocent life, sterilization and artificial contraception.”

Thankfully, the USCCB has not wavered on their opposition of abortion or their refusal to be apart of it in any way. In fact, in 2014, the Catholic bishops were so upset about taxpayer funding of abortions in Obamacare they urged Congress to shutdown the federal government so the issue can be addressed.

by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 4/8/15 2:57 PM

Polling data has consistently shown Americans are pro-life on abortion and a new YouGov survey released today is no exception. The poll finds 66% of Americans say unborn babies are people and 52% say human life begins at conception.

From the survey:

YouGov’s latest research shows that the vast majority of Americans (66%) think that fetuses in the womb are people. Only 16% think that fetuses are not people. A majority of every demographic group believes that fetuses are people, though Democrats and people who earn over $80,000 a year (both 56%) are the least likely to say that fetuses are people. Furthermore, another 76% of Americans think that if a fetus is killed in the course of a violent attack on a pregnant woman the attacker should be charged with murder.

 

Most Americans (52%) believe that life starts at conception. A further 20% believe that life begins when a fetus is able to survive outside of the womb, while 18% think that it only begins at the moment of birth. Attitudes towards when, exactly, life begins differ greatly according to age. While 63% of over-65s and 61% of people aged 45 to 64 believe that life begins at conception, only 36% of under-30s agree with them. Just under half of under-30s either believe that life begins when a fetus can survive (25%) or at birth (22%).

From YouGov: “Asked broadly about abortion rights, 56% of Americans think that abortion should not be legal on request, with 17% saying that it should never be allowed and 39% saying that it should only be allowed in certain special cases. 16% support abortion until the first trimester, while 9% support it until the point of survivability. 20% believe that abortion should always be legal.”

by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 4/7/15 10:48 AM

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has signed an important pro-life bill to help stop Kansas’ position as a haven for late-term abortions. Brownback signed the the Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act, which would ban the gruesome dismemberment abortion procedure.

The latest abortion figures in Kansas showed abortions going down but the number of dismemberment abortions, or D&E abortions, rising from 584 in 2013 to 2014. They constituted 8.8% of the total 7,263 Kansas abortions reported.

Gov. Brownback commented, “This is a horrific procedure and we are pleased to ban it in Kansas and we hope it will be banned nationally.”

To commemorate this ground-breaking and first-in-the-nation measure, Gov. Brownback will travel across Kansas for ceremonial signings of the bill on April 28.

“Dismemberment abortion kills a baby by tearing her apart limb from limb,” said National Right to Life Director of State Legislation Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D. “Before the first trimester ends, the unborn child has a beating heart, brain waves, and every organ system in place. Dismemberment abortions occur after the baby has reached these milestones.”

Kansans for Life Executive Director, Mary Kay Culp, explained that SB 95 bans a particularly gruesome abortion method in which a living unborn child in her mother’s womb is ripped apart by an abortionist using sharp metal tools. In the words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, the unborn child, “dies just as a human adult or child would: It bleeds to death as it is torn limb from limb.”[Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914, 958-959].

“SB 95 bans a particularly gruesome abortion method in which a living unborn child in her mother’s womb is ripped apart into pieces by an abortionist using sharp metal tools,” she said. “Abortionist LeRoy Carhart testified under oath that the unborn child is alive because he is watching him/her on ultrasound during the procedure. In the words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, the unborn child in a D&E/ Dismemberment abortion, “dies just as a human adult or child would: It bleeds to death as it is torn limb from limb.'”

The bill was carried on the House floor by Rep. Steve Brunk (R-Wichita), with assistance on legal areas by former judge, Rep. John Rubin (R-Shawnee) – both pro-life leaders in the House.

D&E dismemberment abortions are as brutal as the partial-birth abortion method, which is now illegal in the United States and which was upheld in the Supreme Court. But would such an abortion ban be constitutional given the Roe v. Wade decision? National Right to Life points to the high court’s ruling in the partial-birth abortion case as grounds for banning dismemberment abortions too.

In his dissent to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2000 Stenberg v. Carhart decision, Justice Kennedy observed that in D&E dismemberment abortions, “The fetus, in many cases, dies just as a human adult or child would: It bleeds to death as it is torn limb from limb. The fetus can be alive at the beginning of the dismemberment process and can survive for a time while its limbs are being torn off.” Justice Kennedy added in the Court’s 2007 opinion, Gonzales v. Carhart, which upheld the ban on partial-birth abortion, that D&E abortions are “laden with the power to devalue human life…”

Testimony provided by Kansans for Life emphasized that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ban on the partial-birth method of abortion in 2007 after two cases, Stenberg v Carhart and Gonzales v Carhart. In both cases, the Court closely examined both the partial-birth and D&E/ Dismemberment abortion methods and found them to be “brutal.”

“When abortion textbooks describe in cold, explicit detail exactly how to kill a human being by ripping off arms and legs piece by piece, civilized members of society have no choice but to stand up and demand a change,” added Spaulding Balch. “When you think it can’t be uglier, the abortion industry continues to shock with violent methods of abortion.”

by Sarah Zagorski | LifeNews.com | 4/6/15 4:27 PM

In the first quarter of 2015, over 300 pro-life bills have been filed in state legislatures across the United States. According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, these bills have been filed in 43 states and are largely bills that ban abortion after 20-weeks or limit the use of medication abortion.

The Hill reports that more than a dozen states have passed pro-life bills in at least one chamber; and Arizona, Idaho, West Virginia and Arkansas have all passed bills in both chambers. In a statement, the Guttmacher Institute said that the trend toward these two policies reflects “a disturbing combination of attempts to curtail access in both the early and later months of pregnancy. The laws could ultimately deprive women of options and leave them with “a greatly reduced time frame to get the care they need.”

However, what the Guttmacher Institute failed to mention is that the majority of Americans support 20-week bans because they oppose dismembering fully formed, pain-capable babies in utero. In fact, a national poll by The Polling Company found that 64% of Americans support laws banning painful late-abortions after 20 weeks, unless the mother’s life was in danger. Additionally, according to a 2014 CNN survey, 20% of American’s say abortion should always be illegal and 38% say most abortions should be illegal — making it so 58% of Americans oppose all or virtually all abortions.

As LifeNews previously reported, only 27% of Americans side with Planned Parenthood and President Barack Obama in saying abortions should always be legal. Another 13 percent say abortion should be legal in most cases, making it so only 40 percent of Americans generally favor legalized abortion in most instances.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-Arizona), the sponsor of the federal 20-week abortion ban shared with LifeNews the importance of his bill. He said, “More than 18,000 ‘very late term’ abortions are performed every year on perfectly healthy unborn babies in America. These are innocent and defenseless children who cannot only feel pain, but who can survive outside of the womb in most cases, and who are torturously killed without even basic anesthesia. Many of them cry and scream as they die, but because it is amniotic fluid going over their vocal cords instead of air, we don’t hear them.”

Furthermore, the Guttmacher Institute ignores the fact that lawmakers have good reason to limit medication abortion. In April 2011, the FDA reported that 14 women have died from medication abortions in the United States alone and 2,207 women have been injured by it.

Of the women experiencing physical problems resulting from the abortion drug, 612 women required hospitalizations, 339 experienced blood loss significant enough to require a transfusion, 256 experienced infections and 48 women experienced what the FDA labeled as “severe infections.” Their report defined severe infections like this: “Severe infections generally involve death or hospitalization for at least 2-3 days, intravenous antibiotics for at least 24 hours, total antibiotic usage for at least 3 days, and any other physical or clinical findings, laboratory data or surgery that suggest a severe infection.”

Unbelievably, even Planned Parenthood acknowledges the dangers of the abortion pill. In a 2012 “study” released by the abortion business, they revealed that the abortion pill failed for 1,169 women and that there were 385 serious complications reported during the study period. In other words, at least one woman is seriously injured from the abortion pill daily.

by Sarah Zagorski | LifeNews.com | 4/3/15 4:13 PM

In North Carolina, Republican lawmakers have filed House Bill 465, which would ban healthcare facilities owned by the University of North Carolina and East Carolina University from performing abortions. Additionally, the legislation would increase the required waiting period prior to an abortion from 24 hours to 72 hour.

Four women representatives, Rep. Jacqueline Shaffer, Pat McElraft, Rena Turner and Susan Martin, sponsored HB 465. The vice president of public policy at Planned Parenthood, Melissa Reed, commented on the legislation and said, “This delay, coupled with the additional restrictions, further demonstrates that politicians are attempting to practice medicine with absolutely no understanding of the scope of practice of abortion care.”

She continued, “In reality, these bills have nothing to do with patient safety and are just attempts by politicians to insert their own political agendas into medical care, It is shameful North Carolina legislators continue to sacrifice women’s health in their ideological attempts to take this state backwards.”

According to Indy Week, Indiana abortionists must inform women the following prior to an abortion: medical assistance benefits may be available for prenatal care, childbirth and neonatal care; the father has to pay child support, even if he has offered to pay for the abortion; she has other alternatives to abortion, including adoption or having a child; she has the right to review information from crisis pregnancy centers; and she can withhold her consent to having an abortion at any time before or during the procedure.

Earlier this year, North Carolina lawmakers introduced Senate Bill 604,which attempts to tighten exemptions to the state’s 20-week abortion ban and allows the Department of Health to annually inspect all abortion facilities. The bill was sponsored by Sen. Morgan Daniel (R-Morganton) and also reiterates the transfer-agreement mandate between abortionists and local hospitals.

As LifeNews previously reported, in 2013 a North Carolina abortion facility was shut down after the Department of Health and Human Services found that it “present an imminent danger to the health, safety and welfare of the clients and that emergency action is required to protect the clients.” TheBaker Clinic for Women, located in Durham, failed to perform adequate quality control in blood banking as well as controlled testing on 108 patients that received Rh(D) (Rhesus) testing.

In severe cases, this can be deadly because it can lead to stillbirths. Rhesus can also result in learning difficulties for the child, deafness, anemia, jaundice or blindness.

by Dave Andrusko | LifeNews.com | 4/1/15 3:31 PM

Although the 2016 presidential election is 19 months away, we’re already under siege by pollsters asking about various candidacies, the importance of various issues, and just the general lay of the land (often taking the form of does the respondent think the country is headed in the right direction).

For our purposes in this short post, two things are worth mentioning. First, CBS News asked Republicans which were the “biggest litmus” test for GOP voters, as the Washington Times characterized the question.

The Times summarized the results thusly:

“Among the issues asked about in the poll, the biggest litmus tests for Republicans are candidate positions on ISIS – which Republicans overwhelmingly see as a major threat to the U.S. – and abortion. Sixty-one percent of Republicans would not consider voting for a candidate who disagrees with them on dealing with ISIS, and half (51 percent) would not vote for someone with a different position on abortion,” the poll says.

Second, the responses of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents to a question about abortion. The 1,023 adults were asked which came closest to their view. Abortion should be

*                                       All                 Republicans                    Democrats                   Independents

Generally available          38                          22                                   54                                    37

Available but
under stricter limits         34                            39                                   28                                   35

Not be permitted              25                           36                                   18                                   25

Several results jump out. Exactly one-fourth (25%) said abortion should not be permitted, which included 25% of Independents.

Nearly half (46%) of Democrats said abortion should either be available but under stricter limits (28%) or not permitted (18%). Interesting!

And 75% of Republicans said abortion should either be available but under stricter limits (39%) or not permitted (36%).

Remember the basic reality of abortion polling. A majority of the public opposes the reasons for which over 90% of all abortions are performed. So when someone says they believe abortion should be available but under stricter limits, at least two things are in play.

First, many [most?] will support abortion only in the “hard cases.” Second, if they are asked a follow up question whether they want Roe v. Wade overturned, they will say no both because they have no idea how radical Roe is and because they support abortion in those difficult, limited circumstances.

A very interesting poll that you can read at cbsnews.com.

by Alliance Defending Freedom | LifeNews.com | 3/31/15 6:43 PM

Alliance Defending Freedom asked the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit Monday to hear the case of Pennsylvania’s Geneva College, which is challenging a three-judge panel’s ruling that would force the Christian school to provide access to abortion pills as required by an Obama administration mandate.

ADF attorneys argue that the ruling conflicts with the reasoning of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Burwell and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, which protects Americans from being forced to act contrary to their beliefs by the government’s mandate. That mandate forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide access, through their health insurance plans, to abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy financial penalties through the IRS.

“Faith-based schools should be free to operate according to the faith they teach and espouse,” said ADF Senior Counsel Gregory S. Baylor. “Both the First Amendment and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act protect this freedom. If that freedom exists for family-owned businesses run by people of faith, as the U.S. Supreme Court so recently affirmed, then it should certainly apply to Christian colleges, which also clearly have a religious purpose and identity.”

“The administration’s attempts at an ‘accommodation’ for non-profits have not been accommodations at all,” Baylor explained. “They still force schools like Geneva to violate their conscience, and that’s why we are asking the full 3rd Circuit to weigh in.”

Last year, a federal district court suspended enforcement of the mandate against Geneva College’s employee and student health plans. The administration appealed those decisions to the 3rd Circuit, which consolidated the case, Geneva College v. Burwell, with two other similar cases.

“In its decision, the Supreme Court resolved the debate, holding that government substantially burdens religious exercise when it substantially pressures a religious claimant to take an action contrary to its religious convictions,” the ADF en banc petition filed with the 3rd Circuit explains.

“The panel’s approach is inconsistent with Hobby Lobby,” the brief continues. “If it were true that RFRA claimants can never point to ‘the effects’ of the actions the government requires them to perform, then the plaintiffs in Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood would not have prevailed at the Supreme Court.”

“All Americans should oppose unjust laws that force people – under threat of punishment – to give up their fundamental freedoms in order to provide insurance,” added ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot. “That’s no different for this Christian organization, which simply wants to abide by the very faith it espouses. The government is forbidden from punishing people of faith for making decisions consistent with that faith.”

by Shawn Carney | LifeNews.com | 3/30/15 9:49 AM