Life Advocacy Briefing

Fur to Fly?

CONGRESS RETURNS NEXT WEEK from the August recess. Among the likely issues to be debated are the Burris Amendment in the Senate to force military facilities to offer abortions and, in the House, a bid by Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) to enact an end-run around the court order halting embryo-killing experimentation. Members can be contacted via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-3121 or by electronic mail via the respective Internet websites www.senate.gov and www.house.gov.

Rep. DeGette has filed several measures pushing embryo vivisection. The most recent bill she has filed, HR-4808, is pending in the House Committee on Energy & Commerce and has 51 co-sponsors. Observers believe she will step up efforts to pass HR-4808 in order to shortcircuit litigation challenging the legality of embryo destruction under the Dickey/Wicker Amendment; the DeGette bill would gut this long-standing statutory protection.

The co-sponsors are Democratic Representatives Raul Grijalva (AZ); Lois Capps, Sam Farr, Bob Filner, Barbara Lee, Doris Matsui, Linda Sanchez, Mike Thompson & Lynn Woolsey (CA); Ed Perlmutter (CO); Henry Johnson (GA); Mazie Hirono (HI); Melissa Bean, Luis Gutierrez, Jesse Jackson & Janice Schakowsky (IL); Andre Carson (IN); Leonard Boswell (IA); Michael Capuano, Barney Frank & James McGovern (MA); John Dingell, Carolyn Kilpatrick & Mark Schauer (MI); Russ Carnahan (MO); Shelley Berkley (NV); Paul Hodes (NH); Rush Holt (NJ);

Also, Democratic Representatives Gary Ackerman, Michael Arcuri, Timothy Bishop, Maurice Hinchey, Daniel Maffei, Carolyn Maloney, Charles Rangel & Louise Slaughter (NY); Zachary Space & Betty Sutton (OH); Earl Blumenauer & David Wu (OR); Patrick Murphy & Allyson Schwartz (PA); James Langevin (RI); Gene Green (TX); James Moran (VA); Jim McDermott (WA); and Tammy Baldwin & Gwen Moore (WI);

And Republicans Michael Castle (DE), Mark Kirk (IL); and Charles Dent (PA).

Yoo-Hoo – We’re Out Here!

CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS ARE BELIEVED TO BE PREPARING to release a sequel to the wildly successful “Contract with America” by which the party offered a united agenda to the voters in 1994. Early reports indicate the planned 2010 “contract” could, as did the 1994 document, omit a key focus: a family values agenda.

Among other pro-family organizations seeking to influence the House GOP leaders as we go to print, the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List has launched a “Life Speaking Out Campaign.” We publish SBA List’s news release announcement at the close of this Life Advocacy Briefing.

Logical Conclusion?

A HORRIFYING HOSTAGE CRISIS last Wednesday captured the attention of the news media and the public, only in part because the target of the crime was a prominent cable television network. Equally fascinating and baffling to the media was the stated motive of the now-dead perpetrator.

The man was seeking to persuade the network to join him in crusading against what he called “parasitic babies.” He was a population control fanatic.

Murmurs about “mental illness” dominated the motive speculations, and certainly the man took extreme measures to enforce his political vision, but how does his point of view differ from the official position of the US government under the current radical regime and how does it differ from the extremist “greens” that the mass media pundits so fawningly admire?

The perpetrator, writes Gary Bauer in his Sept. 2 End of Day Report for subscribers to his Campaign for Working Families, “breathed the poisoned air of the radical environmentalist culture.

“I laughed,” writes Mr. Bauer, “as I watched ABC News last night reporting that he made ‘bizarre demands’ that people be sterilized because human beings are destroying the planet. It’s bizarre all right,” comments the former Reagan domestic policy advisor. “But, folks, this is a constant theme of the environmental movement! When Al Gore famously said, ‘The planet has a fever,’ he was referring,” notes Mr. Bauer, “to human activity as the ‘organism’ the planet was trying to fight off.

“In fact,” notes Mr. Bauer, “[the hostage-taker] claimed to have had an ‘awakening’ after watching Gore’s so-called documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.”

And Mr. Bauer continues, “Sadly, this thinking has even become government policy. This is why we are spending millions of your hard-earned tax dollars each year to subsidize Planned Parenthood and send contraceptives and promote abortion overseas.

“Depopulation and de-development,” he notes, “are part of the radical environmental agenda embraced by John Holdren, Barack Obama’s science czar.” And he carries a lot of fire-power in his unaccountable office.

The hostage-taker’s crusade did not begin with last week’s bizarre invasion of a television network. A year ago, reports Kathleen Gilbert for LifeSiteNews.com, the same individual encountered members of American Life League protesting the birth control pill on the steps of Planned Parenthood’s headquarters in the nation’s capital.

The eco-fanatic posted a video of the encounter on YouTube.com, reports Ms. Gilbert, declaring, “‘You can’t say that we can breed as many children as I want and that the earth is unlimited. The earth is limited. You can’t just say we got to fill the earth, have all these children, and never mind all the other creatures.’” The man proceeded to bash the Bible for the Lord’s instruction to man to be fruitful.

Seemingly detaching himself from the human race, the man continued, reports Ms. Gilbert, “‘See, personally I don’t care if you humans destroy yourselves with your stupid wars. But you can’t destroy the natural world,’” he said, quoted by LifeSite. “‘Why don’t you guys just slice yourselves with knives instead of something [e.g. war], but please don’t hurt the wildlife …,’” he said. “‘There’s only so many of them.’”

He went on to extol the virtues of animals, reports Ms. Gilbert. “‘Animals are wonderful creatures; … they live sustainable lives. They mean no harm. … But humans are really environmentally destructive, and we gotta stop breeding or something.’” Consider the source.

Christian Docs Weigh In Against Embryo Vivisection

STINGING CRITICISM was aimed at the Obama Regime last Tuesday for “‘irrational insistence’ on channeling hundreds of millions of federal dollars toward ‘speculative’ embryonic stemcell research rather than proven sources of cures that do not involve the destruction of embryos.”

The blast came from David Stevens MD, CEO of the Christian Medical Assn. and was quoted by Christian Post reporter Michelle A. Vu. The CMA chief’s statement came in response to a Justice Dept. appeal of a preliminary injunction blocking the Administration from funding the controversial experiments while litigation proceeds to challenge Pres. Obama’s executive order directing the grant-making. The injunction was handed down in late August by federal Judge Royce Lamberth, as we reported in last week’s Life Advocacy Briefing.

The Justice Dept. has “asked the judge to respond by Sept. 7,” writes Ms. Vu, “regarding its request to lift the injunction.”

“‘The Obama Administration should prioritize curing patients,’” remarked Dr. Stevens in the Christian Post report, “‘not fighting the court ruling that has stopped their illegal funding’” of the anti-ethical medical experiments.

Noting the 14-year-standing Dickey/Wicker Amendment, which bars funding for experiments in which embryonic human beings are killed, Judge Lamberth ruled that plaintiffs challenging the grants had a reasonable prospect of prevailing in the pending litigation.

Good News

THE BRAIN-INJURED PASTOR whose death was being hastened by authorities in Canada (see last week’s Life Advocacy Briefing) is eating again. In fact, he is able now to swallow.

A court-appointed decision-maker, reportedly chosen for his willingness to agree with the hospital, had gone along with a panel’s ruling that Pastor Joshua Mayandy not be given food or drink unless a doctor heard him make a “capable” request for it.

But two interventions have arrested that plot. After the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) took his plight to the public, “the hospital received thousands of calls protesting the removal of food and water,” reports Charlie Butts for OneNewsNow.com, Internet news outlet of American Family Assn.

And the decision-maker yielded so far as “‘to allow a nurse, who is part of the [pastor’s] church, to come in every day and feed Pastor Mayandy,’” said EPC chief Alex Schadenberg. “‘That [daily feeding] has begun,’” reported Mr. Schadenberg in the OneNewsNow story, “‘and it’s still continuing.’”

Medical Research & Human Dignity

Sept. 2, 2010, BreakPoint commentary by Chuck Colson, copyright Prison Fellowship Ministries

A federal judge, I’m happy to say, halted federal funding for embryonic stemcell research. But folks, that’s just Round 1.

Ever since 1996, the law has been clear: The federal government may not pay for research in which existing human embryos are “destroyed, discarded or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.”

That is, the federal government may not fund embryonic stemcell (or ESC) research beyond existing lines of stem cells.

So while billions of dollars of private and state money flow in to embryo-destructive research, federal tax dollars have not supported this morally compromised science. That is, until recently.

The Obama Administration decided that the law could be read in a way that separates research on embryonic stem cells from the destruction of embryos required in order to obtain those cells. A little sleight of hand is all that’s needed to circumvent the law and its clear intent of protecting embryonic humans.

Last week, Judge Royce Lamberth called that reasoning unreasonable. “To conduct ESC research,” he wrote, “ESCs must be derived from an embryo. The process of deriving ESCs from an embryo results in the destruction of the embryo. Thus, ESC research necessarily depends upon the destruction of a human embryo.”

Exactly! Federal funding, he held, violates the law.

Most pro-lifers were elated. But this was just Round One. The anti-life machine is kicking in to high gear. They’ll appeal, Congress may seek to re-write the law, and the Obama Administration has every intention of fulfilling its campaign promises on embryonic stemcell research, one way or the other.

Naturally, the media’s response was immediate and nasty. William Saletan of Slate called Judge Lamberth “crazy” and “brain-dead.” After all, argued the Washington Post, Lamberth disrupted “one of the most promising lines of research in recent memory.”

Promising? Really? Hardly. Not a single cure using embryonic stem cells is even on the horizon. We know using adult stem cells works. But with embryonic stem cells, all we have is what author Emily Yoffe calls “infomercial-level hype.”

Also writing in Slate, Yoffe comments that when it comes to stem cells and other high-tech biology, scientists invariably oversell the medical benefits of their research. “Without money,” she writes, “there’s no science. Researchers must constantly convince administrators who control tax dollars, investors and individual donors that the work they are doing will make a difference.”

Beyond that, she notes, scientists, donors and patients all want to believe in miracle cures, and so those who raise moral or legal objections become the enemy – cruel ideologues who would just as soon see people suffer and die.

But since precious resources are being lavished on research that isn’t curing a single disease, reasonable people might wonder which side is truly concerned about helping people.

So let’s prepare ourselves and be ready [to] refute the spurious arguments being advanced for a medical utopia. Joni Eareckson Tada has given us a brilliant new book, Life in the Balance, which spells this out. And you can get it in our bookstore.

Folks, let’s be real: designer babies, sperm banks, embryo-destructive research – the threats are coming at us from all sides. We’ve got to be prepared to defend the truth.

Calling for Pro-Life Priority in GOP Blueprint

Susan B. Anthony List news release announcing campaign to appeal to US House GOP leadership

Today [Sept. 2], the Susan B. Anthony List announced the launch of its “Life Speaking Out Campaign” aimed at encouraging House GOP leadership to make protecting women and the unborn a priority in its legislative blueprint expected after Labor Day. The campaign includes a website for pro-life activists to lobby House GOP leadership (www.LifeSpeakingOut.com) and an encouraging letter to Leadership signed by SBA List president Marjorie Dannenfelser.

“The Republican Party must show what it is made of this time around. They can do so by acting on their convictions and those of their party and by making a commitment to passage of commonsense, life-saving legislation,” said [Mrs.] Dannenfelser. “Missing from the GOP’s original Contract in 1994 was any emphasis on policies protecting the unborn. Pro-life legislation was not made a priority in the following Congress. With the support of a vibrant pro-life movement that understands the urgency of addressing the tragedy of nearly 4,000 abortions per day, coupled with the vast majority of Americans who support a commonsense pro-life agenda, enacting that agenda would not require a heavy lift.”

Since the format for the blueprint was originally floated, it has been widely reported that the agenda consists of five basic planks which were outlined in a recess document: jobs, national security, spending restraint, government reform and health care. The SBA List praised its reported inclusion of anti funding-of-abortion language, but the “Life Speaking Out Campaign” asks that GOP leaders include a separate “Family Values” plank under which pro-life priorities would be included.

“It would be an electorally costly mistake for the future of the GOP to write off one leg of the three-legged stool of Ronald Reagan conservatism. Real leaders multi-task. The strongly pro-life GOP leadership should be able to respond to the economic crisis and enact pro-life legislation,” [Mrs.] Dannenfelser said.

“With the majority of Americans labeling themselves pro-life, and with an even stronger majority agreeing that tax dollars should not fund abortion, the consensus for passage of serious pro-life legislation could not be stronger. Today’s SBA List initiative will communicate the message loud and clear that Americans are ready to support such leadership and that the pro-life movement is ready to help make pro-woman, life-saving proposals law.”

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