Life Advocacy Briefing

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OUR PUBLICATION MIGHT BE SOMEWHAT LATE NEXT WEEK. Our editor is going to be engaged in other business during our usual research/writing/publishing time. But we’ll do our best to reach you in a timely fashion.

Pro-Life Bill Falls in U.S. House

A SEX-SELECTION ABORTION BAN FELL 30 VOTES SHORT OF PASSAGE in the US House Thursday. Though the vote was 246 to 168, the measure was brought up under a procedure which precluded amendments but required it to garner a 2/3 vote. The roll call on HR-3541, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, was published in the Congressional Record and can be found at the close of this Life Advocacy Briefing.

This proposal was filed last December by Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) with 98 co-sponsors. It was an initiative from the National Right to Life Committee.

Wednesday’s debate on the measure was spirited and aided the pro-life community in educating the public on the shocking reality of sex-selection abortion – usually played out in the form of discrimination against girl babies – and the growing phenomenon of such injustice in America.

“Rep. Steve King (R-IA) brought the point home,” notes Kathleen Gilbert for LifeSiteNews.com, “with the story of World War II veteran Gil Copper, who spent his free time in India standing under a bridge in the Ganges River, ‘listening for the splash of a little baby girl that would often and regularly be tossed off the bridge and into the river to drown.’ [Mr.] Copper would rescue the babies and take them to a Catholic orphanage in New Delhi,” reported Rep. King. “‘That culture has arrived here in this country,’” he said, quoted by LifeSiteNews, “‘and this bill puts an end to that kind of culture.’”

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) later issued a statement: “While I was disappointed that the Administration opposed the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act and we fell short of the two-thirds threshold needed for passage, I was heartened by the fact that a bipartisan majority of the House voted to end sex-selection abortions. An overwhelming majority of Americans disagree with the abhorrent practice of aborting a baby based solely on sex, which nearly always targets unborn girls. The United States is one of the few countries in the world that does not have a law prohibiting sex-selection abortions, and we must continue our efforts to change that.”

Several House Members, according to LifeSiteNews, noted a “newly released undercover video from Live Action in which a Planned Parenthood counselor,” writes Miss Gilbert, “told a potential patient how to abuse Medicaid to get an ultrasound determining whether the baby was a girl, and other advice for a sex-selection abortion. Planned Parenthood fired the employee in the video,” reports Miss Gilbert, “but confirmed that it is willing to perform abortions based on the baby’s gender.

“‘In other words, Planned Parenthood is okay with exterminating a child in its huge network of clinics simply because she’s a girl,’” charged Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), quoted by Miss Gilbert. “‘What a dangerous place for little girls,’ said [Mr.] Smith. ‘Let’s not forget that Planned Parenthood aborts approximately 330,000 children each year. This, Mr. Speaker, is the real war on women.’”

That sentiment was echoed by Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), who said during House debate, reports Miss Gilbert, “‘This is the ultimate war on women. If we don’t allow women to be born, we cannot talk about any other rights.’”

Proof of the Need

LIVE ACTION DEMONSTRATED THE NEED for HR-3541 by releasing last week two videos – one in a Texas Planned Parenthood abortuary and the second in Planned Parenthood’s “Margaret Sanger Center International” in New York City – documenting the willingness of employees to facilitate tests to determine gender for the purpose of deciding on abortion. Both videos were produced using Live Action’s undercover investigation techniques of filming a girl or woman posing as a potential abortion customer.

In the New York video, the clinic worker “tells the investigator,” writes Kathleen Gilbert for LifeSiteNews.com, “that Planned Parenthood would not question her sex-selection motivations. ‘I can tell you that here at Planned Parenthood, we believe that it’s not up to us to decide what is a good or a bad reason for somebody to terminate a pregnancy,’ she said.”

But 246 Members of Congress believe it is in the best interests of America and of American women – born and unborn – to go on the record against sex-selection abortion, until the grand day when the nine men and women in black robes give the green light for recriminalizing baby killing for any reason.

Just a Political Move?

HOUSE DEMOCRATIC LEADERS DISMISSED the GOP scheduling of the sex-selection abortion ban as, in the words of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s spokesman Drew Hammill, quoted by Roll Call’s Jonathan Strong, “‘yet another distraction and yet another day that this Republican Majority fails to act on job creation.’”

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) sneered, also in Roll Call, “‘Nobody that I know, nobody that I’ve ever talked to, is for abortions for the purposes of gender selection. Period. … This is coming up,’” he said, “‘because somebody decided that, politically, this is a difficult place to put people in.’” Okay, Mr. Hoyer, then what is the harm in voting to outlaw the practice? And how is the discussion and vote “a difficult place” for some House Members if it is such a “nothingburger” issue?

White House Weighs In

APPARENTLY DESIRING TO TAKE CREDIT for blocking legislation barring sex-selection abortion, the White House Wednesday night – after the debate but before the vote – rushed out a statement opposing the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act.

“The Administration opposes gender discrimination in all forms,” the statement opens, “but,” it continues, “the end result of this legislation would be to subject doctors to criminal prosecution if they fail to determine the motivations behind a very personal and private decision. The government should not intrude in medical decisions or private family matters in this way.”

The statement was, shall we say, in error. Nothing in the bill required the abortionist to “determine the motivations” in a mother presenting her child for elimination. It would have applied in cases where the gender motivation is made known. And it would put into public policy the American people’s utter rejection of such discrimination.

‘Asserting & Protecting’ Religious Freedom

THE GENERAL COUNSEL OF CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY of AMERICA told LifeSiteNews in an electronic-mail message last week, reports Kathleen Gilbert, that the school had attempted without success to reason with the Obama Regime before joining with 42 other Roman Catholic organizations in filing a dozen lawsuits May 21 against the ObamaCare contraception/abortifacient/sterilization mandate.

“‘The Administration showed no sign of taking seriously the objections of religious institutions,’” Lawrence Morris stated, “‘and the so-called “accommodation” ignores the reality of insurance companies: We would still directly be in the contraception business,’” he wrote to LifeSiteNews, “‘even if the insurer technically provided the drugs or devices. …

“‘There is but one issue here,’” said Mr. Morris: “‘Our religious freedom as a Catholic institution,’ he said. ‘The government has overstepped its authority in trying to circumscribe that freedom, and now we must turn to the courts to assert and protect those rights.’”

Rally for Religious Freedom this Friday

ORGANIZERS OF THE MARCH 23 ‘STAND-UP RALLY’ for religious freedom have chosen this Friday, June 8, for the second such nationwide demonstration opposing the ObamaCare contraception/abortifacient/sterilization mandate.

Rallies in at least 140 cities nationwide will convene at noon on the 223rd anniversary of the day Founder James Madison submitted the Bill of Rights to America’s first Congress; the first enumerated right guarantees religious freedom. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Thus regulations promulgated under the ObamaCare law cannot constitutionally establish a religion or prohibit the free exercise of religion.

Locations for the planned rallies are listed at www.standupforreligiousfreedom.com/locations.

Dictators & Baby Girls

May 30, 2012, BreakPoint commentary by Eric Metaxas, copyright Prison Fellowship Ministries
                 
In the newly released film The Dictator, the title character is played by shock comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. In one scene, the dictator is informed by his wife that she is pregnant, to which he replies, “Are you having a boy or an abortion?” Yikes!

While I do not plan to see the film myself – and don’t recommend that you do – it is an example of how humor allows us to broach subjects we would otherwise ignore, in this case, what has been called “a global war on baby girls.”

That’s how a recent article in The New Atlantis characterizes what Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute calls “an ominous and entirely new form of gender discrimination.” This discrimination combines “surgical abortion [and the] … information gained through prenatal gender determination.”

Unlike Sacha Baron Cohen’s fictional Dictator, the practitioners of this discrimination aren’t content to simply ask whether it’s a boy or a girl; technologies like amniocentesis leave nothing to chance. If it’s a boy, the pregnancy virtually always goes to term. If not, abortion is often the result.

As Eberstadt tells us, “The practice has become … ruthlessly routine” in many societies around the world. So much so that in these societies, gender balances have become horribly skewed.

The best-known example is China, where the infamous “one-child” policy and the cultural preference for boys have resulted in a ratio of approximately 120 boys for every 100 girls. But that may understate the imbalance; there are many places in China where the ratio exceeds 150 boys for every 100 girls.

And it isn’t only China. Sex ratios are similarly skewed in Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and India. It is estimated that there are 160 million “missing” Asian women. That’s “missing” as in “never born.”

The missing women aren’t the only victims of this lethal discrimination. Last summer, Chuck Colson told BreakPoint listeners about the link between sex-selection abortion and the increased demand for sex in India. This demand is being met, in part, by selling girls from neighboring Nepal into slavery and prostitution.

It isn’t only India. A 2007 State Dept. report drew a link between bride kidnapping and the Chinese sex-ratio imbalance.  A 2008 New Republic article linked the sex-ratio imbalance to crime sprees in Chinese cities by “hopeless volatile men.”

Given the social devastation wrought by this discrimination, you’d hope that people would rethink the impact of abortion on demand.

But you would hope in vain. When Ross Douthat of the New York Times noted the obvious connection between the missing women and abortion, the author of the aforementioned New Republic article, Mara Hvistendahl, took umbrage. She insisted that abortion on demand was unrelated to the issue.

Chuck called this dust-up a clear “example of the blinding power of a false worldview” – in this case the unsustainable worldview that sees abortion as an absolute, fundamental woman’s right. Our culture refuses to acknowledge that in the name of “female empowerment,” millions of future women are being eliminated. …

House Voting Record

HR-3541 – Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act – Final Passage – Failed, needing 2/3 – 246 to 168 (Democrats in italics; new Members in ALL CAPS)

Voting “yes” / pro-Life: AL/Aderholt, Bachus, Bonner, Brooks & Rogers; AK/Young; AZ/Flake, Franks, Gosar, Quayle & Schweikert; AR/Crawford, Griffin, Ross & Womack; CA/Bilbray, Calvert, Campbell, Denham, Dreier, Gallegly, Garamendi, Herger, Hunter, Issa, Lungren, McClintock, McKeon, Gary Miller, Nunes, Rohrabacher & Royce; CO/Coffman, Gardner, Lamborn & Tipton; FL/Adams, Bilirakis, Buchanan, Crenshaw, Diaz-Balart, Mica, Miller, Nugent, Posey, Rivera, Rooney, Ros-Lehtinen, Ross, Southerland, Stearns, Webster & West; GA/Barrow, Broun, Gingrey, Graves, Kingston, Price, Austin Scott, Westmoreland & Woodall; ID/Labrador & Simpson; IL/Biggert, Costello, Hultgren, Johnson, Kinzinger, Lipinski, Manzullo, Roskam, Schilling, Schock, Shimkus & Walsh; IN/Bucshon, Donnelly, Pence, Rokita, Stutzman & Young; IA/King & Latham; KS/Huelskamp, Jenkins, Pompeo & Yoder; KY/Davis, Guthrie, Rogers & Whitfield;  LA/Alexander, Boustany, Cassidy, Fleming, Landry & Scalise; MD/Bartlett & Harris; MA/Lynch; MI/Benishek, Camp, Huizenga, McCotter, Miller, Rogers, Upton & Walberg; MN/Bachmann, Cravaack, Kline, Paulsen & Peterson; MS/Harper, Nunnelee & Palazzo; MO/Akin, Emerson, Graves, Hartzler, Long & Luetkemeyer; MT/Rehberg; NE/Smith & Terry; NV/AMODEI & Heck; NJ/Frelinghuysen, Garrett, Lance, LoBiondo, Runyan & Smith; NM/Pearce; NY/Buerkle, Gibson, Grimm, King, Reed & Turner; NC/Coble, Ellmers, Foxx, Jones, Kissell, McHenry, McIntyre, Myrick & Shuler; ND/Berg; OH/Austria, Chabot, Gibbs, Johnson, Jordan, LaTourette, Latta, Renacci, Schmidt, Stivers, Tiberi & Turner; OK/Boren, Cole, Lankford, Lucas & Sullivan; OR/Walden; PA/Altmire, Barletta, Critz, Dent, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, Holden, Kelly, Marino, Meehan, Murphy, Pitts, Platts, Shuster & Thompson; SC/Duncan, Gowdy, Mulvaney, Tim Scott & Wilson; SD/Noem; TN/Black, Blackburn, Cooper, DesJarlais, Duncan, Fincher, Fleischmann & Roe; TX/Barton, Brady, Burgess, Canseco, Carter, Conaway, Cuellar, Culberson, Farenthold, Flores, Gohmert, Granger, Hall, Hensarling, Sam Johnson, Marchant, McCaul, Neugebauer, Olson, Poe, Reyes, Sessions, Smith & Thornberry; UT/Bishop, Chaffetz & Matheson; VA/Cantor, Forbes, Goodlatte, Griffith, Hurt, Rigell, Wittman & Wolf; WA/Hastings, Herrera-Beutler, McMorris-Rodgers & Reichert; WV/Capito, McKinley & Rahall; WI/Duffy, Petri, Ribble, Ryan & Sensenbrenner; WY/Lummis.

Voting “no” / anti-Life: AL/Sewell; AZ/Grijalva & Pastor; CA/Baca, Bass, Becerra, Berman, Bono-Mack, Capps, Cardoza, Chu, Costa, Davis, Eshoo, Farr, Filner, Hahn, Honda, Lee, Lofgren, Matsui, McNerney, George Miller, Pelosi, Richardson, Roybal-Allard, Linda Sanchez, Loretta Sanchez, Schiff, Sherman, Speier, Stark, Thompson, Waters, Waxman & Woolsey; CO/DeGette, Perlmutter & Polis; CT/Courtney, DeLauro, Himes, Larson & Murphy; DE/Carney; FL/Brown, Castor, Deutch, Hastings, Wasserman-Schultz & Wilson; GA/Bishop, Johnson, Lewis & David Scott; HI/Hanabusa & Hirono; IL/Davis, Dold, Gutierrez, Jackson, Quigley, Rush & Schakowsky; IN/Carson & Visclosky; IA/Boswell, Braley & Loebsack; KY/Yarmuth; LA/Richmond; ME/Michaud & Pingree; MD/Cummings, Edwards, Hoyer, Ruppersberger, Sarbanes & VanHollen; MA/Capuano, Frank, Keating, Markey, McGovern, Neal, Olver, Tierney & Tsongas; MI/Amash, Clarke, Conyers, Dingell, Kildee, Levin & Peters; MN/McCollum & Walz; MS/Thompson; MO/Carnahan, Clay & Cleaver; NV/Berkley; NH/Bass, NJ/Andrews, Holt, Pallone, Rothman & Sires; NM/Lujan; NY/Ackerman, Bishop, Clarke, Crowley, Engel, Hanna, Hayworth, Higgins, Hinchey, Hochul, Israel, Lowey, Maloney, McCarthy, Meeks, Nadler, Owens, Serrano, Tonko & Towns; NC/Butterfield, Miller, Price & Watt; OH/Fudge, Kaptur, Kucinich, Ryan & Sutton; OR/Blumenauer, BONAMICI, DeFazio & Schrader; PA/Brady, Fattah & Schwartz; RI/Cicilline & Langevin; SC/Clyburn; TN/Cohen; TX/Doggett, Gonzalez, Al Green, Gene Green, Hinojosa, Jackson-Lee, E.B. Johnson & Paul; VT/Welch; VA/Connolly, Moran & Scott; WA/Dicks, Larsen, McDermott & Smith; WI/Baldwin, Kind & Moore.

Not voting: AL/Roby; CA/Lewis, McCarthy & Napolitano; FL/Mack & Young; IN/Burton; KY/Chandler; MN/Ellison; NE/Fortenberry; NH/Guinta; NJ/Pascrell; NM/Heinrich; NY/Rangel, Slaughter & Velazquez; OH/Boehner; PA/Doyle.