Life Advocacy Briefing

Taking a Break

LIFE ADVOCACY’s EDITORIAL TEAM is going on vacation for a bit of travel. Expect our return to your “mailbox” in mid-August.

The Value of ‘Life’ in Appealing to Voters

AT THE CLOSE of this Life Advocacy Briefing, we reprint a report by researcher Michael J. New on results from a recent Gallup Poll on voter attitudes.

We strongly encourage our readers to pay careful attention to this report and to share it with candidates who need confidence in taking a stand for Life.

Life is a winning issue when candidates communicate to voters a principled, reasoned pro-life stand which embraces the humanity of the unborn child and a practical approach to limiting abortion’s damage to mothers, their children and society.

It is this conviction – together with our awareness that professional political advisors nearly always disserve their candidate clients with ignorant counsel to avoid discussing the issue beyond “admitting” the pro-life label – which led us to found Life Advocacy Resource Project and which sustains our work to this day, with the blessing of the Creator of human life.

Pompeo Underscores Right to Life as Human Right

SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO USED AN ADDRESS to The Family Leader Summit in Iowa on July 17 to declare the historic root of the right to Life as an intrinsic American value.

“‘Our founders built our country on a commitment to essential rights, unalienable rights,’ [Secretary] Pompeo declared in his remarks,” writes LifeSiteNews reporter Calvin Freiburger, citing The Epoch Times as source. “‘That comes from these amazing documents: our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, and our nation’s foreign policy,’” said the Secretary of State, “‘and our nation’s foreign policy must be grounded in those central understandings.’”

Responding to the international abortion lobby’s relentless demands for international bodies to infect pro-life countries with population suppression strategies, Secretary Pompeo declared, reports Mr. Freiburger, “‘Abortion quite simply isn’t a human right. It takes a human life.’”

And, notes Mr. Freiburger, he went on to detail “some of the Trump Administration’s work affirming the right to Life on the international stage, particularly its leadership in condemning pro-abortion language in United Nations documents. ‘This Administration,’” he said, “‘appreciates and knows that our rights come from God, not government.’”

The Secretary’s address to the prominent Iowa-based pro-family group came just a day after the publication of its draft report by the State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights, which Secretary Pompeo formed last year, according to Mr. Freiburger. At that time, Mr. Pompeo declared, LifeSiteNews reports, the commission “would ‘provide the intellectual grist of what I hope will be one of the most profound re-examinations of inalienable rights in the world since the 1948 Universal Declaration (on Human Rights at the UN).’ The panel [was] tasked,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “with offering ‘fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights.’”

The Washington Post reported last Monday the commission posted its report on July 16; it can be read at www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Draft-report-of-the-Commission-on-Unalienable-Rights.pdf. The panel is chaired by pro-life giant Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard University law professor emerita and former US Ambassador to the Holy See.

U.N.F.P.A. Twists Its Own Pitch

THE UNITED NATIONS POPULATION FUND (U.N.F.P.A.) HAS ISSUED the 2020 edition of what it calls its “State of World Population” report, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews.com, focusing in part on sex-selection abortion practices in various countries.

The report “contains language,” Mr. Freiburger writes, “that condemns using abortion specifically to exterminate girls while simultaneously rejecting laws to forbid the sexist practice,” … claiming, he reports, “‘Bans on sex selection are often ineffective and also infringe reproductive rights, including access to safe abortion in countries where abortion is legal.’”

The notorious abettor of Red China’s depopulation pogrom “goes on to declare,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “that the solution to sex-selective abortions is not to protect female babies from intentional violence but to ‘tackle the preference for sons through changes in social norms.’”

How about changing the social norm of tolerating violent, deadly attacks on innocent developing children in the name of “women’s rights?”

UNFPA’s “State of World Population” included no reference to last year’s study published, notes Mr. Freiburger, “in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences, [which] found that sex-selective abortion has eliminated more than 23 million girls worldwide.”

We find it fittingly coincidental that the shameful UNFPA report should be released at about the same time as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is receiving the draft report of a commission he inaugurated to herald the intrinsic value of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness [see “Pompeo Underscores …”, above]. UNFPA is once again unwittingly giving the world a demonstration of why America’s founding principles of Life and Liberty are cherished here and around the hurting world.

Abortion Not Welcome in Texas Town

AN EAST TEXAS TOWN HAS ADDED ITSELF to a growing list of Texas communities which have each declared themselves a “sanctuary city for the unborn.”

The city government of East Mountain, population 797, reports Patrick Cunningham for KETK-TV, passed an ordinance last Monday outlawing abortion. “The move is largely symbolic,” states the reporter, “as none of the towns have an abortion clinic in their city limits or even near them.” 

The unborn sanctuary movement “began in June of 2019,” Mr. Cunningham notes, “after the city of Waskom passed the first known such ordinance in the country.” At least eight other towns have followed suit so far.   

The Waskom ordinance which led the movement, reports Mr. Cunningham, “declared Roe v. Wade and other laws permitting abortion ‘to be unconstitutional usurpations of judicial power, which violate both the Tenth Amendment and the Republican Form of Government Clause [of the Constitution] and are null and void in the City of Waskom.’ …

“Back in February,” writes Mr. Cunningham, “the ACLU sued many of [the sanctuary city] towns, writing in a statement that, ‘These ordinances are unconstitutional. Abortion is legal in every state and city in the country, and cities cannot punish pro-abortion organizations for carrying out their important work – especially when they do so in a way that violates their First Amendment rights.’”

The lawsuit was dropped in May, notes Mr. Cunningham, “amidst the rise of the coronavirus epidemic.”

Attorneys General Sue for Abortion

USING THE COVID-19 VIRUS AS AN EXCUSE, the attorneys general of 24 states have filed suit against the Trump Administration’s reversal of an Obama Regime regulation which sought to force doctors to commit abortions and “gender transition” surgeries under ObamaCare.

The suit is being led, reports Paul Smeaton for LifeSiteNews.com, by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D). Citing the Wall Street Journal as source, Mr. Smeaton writes: “California, Massachusetts, Washington, Michigan and Pennsylvania are among the other states joining the suit, which has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.”

What the Trump Administration has disabled is a 2016 redefinition of “sex discrimination” in ObamaCare to include, reports Mr. Smeaton, “an individual’s ‘internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither or a combination of male and female.’ The 2016 rule,” Mr. Smeaton explains, “also included ‘termination of pregnancy’ in its definition of sex discrimination.

“The Obama-era regulations,” he writes, “implied that medical providers would have to commit abortions and treat patients based on their asserted ‘gender identity’ or risk losing federal funding, along with facing a possible referral to the Dept. of Justice for legal action.

“In December 2016, a federal court issued a nationwide injunction,” notes Mr. Smeaton, “which blocked the enforcement of the Obama regulations on the grounds that they were likely to be contrary to civil rights laws and laws protecting religious freedom. This ruling was subsequently upheld by a second federal court in 2019, which found the regulations to be unlawful. But last month, the Dept. of Health & Human Services announced,” explains Mr. Smeaton, “that they will ‘enforce Section 1557 by returning to the government’s interpretation of sex discrimination according to the plain meaning of the word “sex” as male or female and as determined by biology,’” asserting that the Trump Administration is “‘restor[ing] the rule of law by revising certain provisions that go beyond the plain meaning of the law as enacted by Congress.’”

Beware the March of Human Engineering

July 14, 2020, BreakPoint commentary by John Stonestreet & Roberto Rivera

            Recently, the world learned that researchers at London’s Francis Crick Institute used CRISPR technology to genetically edit 18 embryos. Around half of the embryos suffered the kinds of major mutations and genetic damage that could lead to birth defects and life-shortening medical problems. The horrifying results led one gene-editing expert to call for “a restraining order for all genome editors to stay the living daylights away from embryo editing.”

            Unfortunately, the desire to play god with the human genome is not easily discouraged. For example, consider the title of a recent article at Wired which proclaimed a “Neobiological Revolution,” Covid-19 Is Accelerating Human Transformation – Let’s Not Waste It. “From gene editing to brain computer interfaces,” the authors write, “our ability to engineer biological systems will redefine our species and its relation to all other species and the planet. … And Covid-19 is accelerating this transformation.”

            The authors quickly go from confidence to hubris, in language that resembles Satan’s from Paradise Lost: “Our ability to manipulate RNA and DNA, bacteria, viruses, algae and fungi gives us the power to engineer life.” We can, the authors promise, “prevent a future [COVID-like] lockdown,” and failure to do so would be “a crime against humanity.”

            “Imagine the day,” they warn, “when your great-grandchild sues her parents for not genetically engineering her to protect her” from inheritable diseases or even failing “to enhance her in order to compete effectively.”

            What is standing in the way of what they call “our godlike technologies”? Only “our Paleolithic emotions (like fear, jealousy and greed) and our medieval institutions.”

            Of course, all “neurobiological” revolutionaries with “godlike” abilities know that a few eggs have to be broken in order to make an omelet. Perhaps that’s why Wired didn’t mention what happened at the Crick Institute and only offered a passing reference to “the risk of unintended consequences and a backlash from patients, consumers, regulators, religious groups and more.” After all, according to this worldview of scientism, unleashing dangerous mutations on the human genome isn’t the real crime. The real crime is standing in the way of “Progress.”

            What is meant, however, by progress? For whom is progress promised? For humanity and human flourishing? As C. S. Lewis warned in his masterful book The Abolition of Man, “The Power of Man to make himself what he pleases means . . . the power of some men to make other men what they please.”

            “The man-moulders of the new age,” Lewis continued, “will be armed with the powers of the omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique: we shall get at last a race of conditioners who really can cut out all posterity in what shape they please.”

            Of course, to warn of the true risks and human costs of our “neobiological revolution” is to be labeled “anti-science” and “anti-progress.” That should not dissuade us in the least from teaching others that what we know as science emerged as a product of the Christian worldview during the medieval period, grounded by the belief in a rational God Whose creation could be known through reason and inquiry. Because this rational God is also moral, science is not autonomous, untethered from ethical, moral and even theological considerations.

            The Christian assumptions which undergirded the Scientific Revolution also undergird the dignity of each and every human being and demand that we see everyone as ends in and of themselves, and never as mere means of our collective aspirations of “Progress,” whatever that means. 

            With so much at stake, distinctively Christian voices are needed in the sciences exactly now, perhaps more than ever. Courageous consumers must refuse any and all “breakthroughs” or conveniences built upon human rights abuses. Courageous pastors and teachers must clarify for the faithful the moral stakes of our technologies, especially when it comes to genetics and human reproduction.

            And, may God give us a new generation of scientists, who love God and want to discover His creation, and who can lead these fields of study in ways that honor God and protect those vulnerable image bearers among us.

Life Is a Winning Issue

July 8, 2020, National Review commentary by Michael J. New

            Gallup continues to release results on abortion attitudes from its annual “values and beliefs” poll. This week, Gallup released findings about the importance of abortion as a voting issue, showing that about a quarter (24%) of Americans say they would vote for a candidate only if their views align on the issue of abortion. Forty-seven percent of Americans said that abortion was “one of many important factors” in voting, and 25% said abortion was “not a major issue” in how they vote.

            The results indicate that abortion is becoming an increasingly important issue for voters. In 1996, only 18% of respondents to the same survey questions indicated that they would vote for a candidate only if their views on abortion align.

            More interesting is the relative importance that pro-life and pro-choice voters place on abortion when it comes to voting. The survey found that, among those who identify as “pro-life,” an impressive 30% would vote only for a pro-life candidate. Only 19% of people who identify as “pro-choice” said they would vote only for a candidate who supported legal abortion. The same poll found that Americans are split nearly evenly between “pro-choice” and “pro-life” – 48% to 46%. Based on those figures, these statistics suggest that, among single-issue abortion voters, a pro-life candidate running at the national level would enjoy a four-point advantage over a pro-choice opponent.

            This Gallup poll adds to the body of survey data finding that single-issue pro-life voters outnumber single-issue pro-choice voters. Since 2001, Gallup has conducted eight polls about the importance of abortion as a voting issue. In each instance, the percentage of pro-lifers who identify as single-issue voters exceeds the percentage of pro-choicers who do the same.

            These findings are frequently overlooked by many pundits and those in the mainstream media. Indeed, when Republican candidates fare poorly at the ballot box, countless commentators are quick to suggest that their failure was, at least in part, the result of their stance on Life issues. Hopefully, these latest poll results will encourage pro-life candidates this election cycle.