Life Advocacy Briefing

Navy Crosses the Line

THE U.S. NAVY IS NOW OFFERING travel costs and administrative leave to service members to abort their children.   

“Federal law allows women to seek abortions at military facilities only,” reports Emily Mangiaracina for LifeSiteNews, “in the case of rape, incest or life-threatening pregnancies, leaving service members bound by the laws of their state of deployment” if seeking an elective abortion. The travel and leave “benefit” gives – at taxpayer expense – the pregnant service member a means of aborting her child even when stationed in a state where lawmakers have acted to safeguard developing children.

“The new Navy policy provides for paid leave and travel expenses,” writes Ms. Mangiaracina, “not only for abortions but for assisted reproductive technologies procedures, including those involved in in vitro fertilization. “ And it allows also, she notes, “for leave and pay for service members to accompany spouses or dependents seeking an abortion” or an assisted reproduction procedure.

The new policy is a step toward implementing the Pentagon’s “pledge” after the Dobbs ruling last year “to protect ‘seamless access’ to abortion,” reports LifeSiteNews.

Included in the policy memo is an expectation, notes Ms. Mangiaracina, that commanding officers will “expedite the requests” and that they are “forbidden from commanding soldiers from consulting a chaplain, obtaining counsel or [even] medical testing before granting leave.”

It remains to be seen whether this circumvention of post-Roe policy will be addressed during Congressional deliberations on Pentagon appropriations.

A Hint of Progress

AN EFFORT BY G.O.P. STATE ATTORNEYs GENERAL is beginning to pay off in their effort to dissuade pharmacies from falling for the Biden Regime’s entreaties to major pharmacy chains to peddle baby-killing drugs.

Walgreens has announced, reports Calvin Freiburger for LifeSiteNews, “it will not dispense abortion pills in states where abortion itself is legal but Republican attorneys general have warned that distributing abortion pills through the mail is not.”

The FDA has “eliminat[ed] the requirement that abortion pills only be dispensed in-person to the women taking them,” notes Mr. Freiburger, “and the Biden Justice Dept.’s Office of Legal Counsel declar[ed] that abortion pills may be freely mailed across the country, despite the fact that a provision of a 150-year-old law called the Comstock Act … expressly says the opposite.”

When Walgreens and competitor CVS announced they would seek FDA clearance to peddle RU-486, some 20 GOP attorneys generals wrote “letters to the companies,” reports Mr. Freiburger, “warning them that doing so would be in violation of federal law and that they were opening themselves to potential penalties.

“In response, Walgreens previously notified Kansas that it would comply within the state,” writes Mr. Freiburger, “and now the company has confirmed to every signatory that it will not dispense the pills in any of their states, Politico reports,” noted by LifeSiteNews.

Walgreens, however, did indicate its intention to “eventually” dispense the abortion pills “in states that have not disputed the Biden guidance,” reports Mr. Freiburger.

In California, meanwhile, Walgreens is facing a threat by radical Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to “cut off all state business with the retail pharmaceutical chain … unless it agrees to carry abortion-inducing pills in states where they are banned by law,” reports Ben Johnson for The Washington Stand. “Shares of Walgreens stock fell 1.77% after Newsom’s announcement.” Said Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin (R), quote by Mr. Johnson, “‘It is ludicrous that he [Gov. Newsom] is condemning a company for not violating the law.’”

Live Action founder Lila Rose was also quoted by Mr. Johnson. “‘This is ghoulish,’” she said, branding Mr. Newsom’s tweet “‘yet another new low. The salivating over drugs that kill babies is disgusting.’”

Mary Szoch, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity, told The Washington Stand: “‘I hope that every Californian joins this boycott and in doing so saves the lives of countless unborn babies who would have been killed by chemical abortion drugs purchased from Walgreens over 500 stores based in California,’” where the pharmaceutical giant has signaled it will undertake the peddling of RU-486 under the FDA’s new “guidance.”

Ohio Facing Ballot Initiative

PRO-LIFE CITIZENS IN OHIO will soon face a ballot initiative to, notes Ohio Right to Life in National Right to Life News (NRL/News), “enshrine abortion into Ohio’s constitution. The language would allow for abortion with no restrictions and possibly remove all pro-life protections for the preborn currently enacted, including parental consent.”

The NRL/News story quotes from Ohio Right to Life CEO Peter Range, who declared: “‘A significant threat looms that we are preparing for … . California, Michigan and Vermont all backed ballot measures that enshrine the so-called right to abortion in their state constitutions. Kentucky voters rejected a proposed amendment that said a constitutional right to an abortion does not exist in the state. In Montana, a measure that would have guaranteed lifesaving treatment for a child who survived a botched abortion was defeated.

“‘The battle is far from over,’” said Mr. Range, “‘as the left has made their intent to bring a ballot measure here to Ohio clear. That is why we are working at Ohio Right to Life to prepare our state to defeat any measure while simultaneously working with our legislature to pass a law that protects every life conceived. .. There will be more elections, victories and defeats, but through it all, we will not stop fighting until abortion is abolished and our broken culture is restored.’”

Wyoming Backstopping Its Abortion Ban Trigger

WITH A TRIGGER LAW ON HOLD IN COURT, the Wyoming state legislature has passed the Life Is a Human Right Act, outlawing abortion with exceptions targeting babies conceived in the commission of a sex crime. The loophole was added in the Senate, which passed the bill 25 to 5.

“‘It’s not exactly what we would have liked,’ Republican State Rep. Chip Nieman said,” quoted by LifeSiteNews reporter Calvin Freiburger, “‘but we all understand compromise, and trying to work with both sides to address concerns is an important part of making legislation move ahead.’”

GOP Gov. Mark Gordon will likely sign the bill. Just a year ago, he signed the trigger law, currently on hold in court, where it will not be heard before December. An amendment on the new bill provides, notes Mr. Freiburger, “that it would only take effect if the … trigger law is deemed unconstitutional.”

Grandstanding for the Feminists

March 8, 2023, BreakPoint commentary by John Stonestreet & Jared Eckert

             Last week, Sen. Dick Durbin [D-IL] held a committee hearing in hopes of resurrecting the controversial Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). While proponents claim the amendment would eliminate discrimination against women, in reality – as with the gross misuse of Title IX legislation – it would accelerate the erasure and harm of women.

             It is unlikely that the ERA has any chance of passing into law, which Senate advocates know, making it questionable how much of this new push is sincere and how much is grandstanding.

             Disguised in language of equality, the current version of the ERA eliminates any legitimate legal distinctions between men and women. Women are already harmed by similar policies – like those that allow men to participate against women in sports and give them access to women’s facilities. If ratified, the ERA would cement and amplify these harmful policies by making them “constitutional.”

             But this much should be obvious: No law that denies women are created different from men can protect women.

Human Wrongs

March 2, 2023, The Washington Stand commentary by Joy Stockbauer

             This week, a group of nearly 200 so-called human rights organizations sent a letter to the United Nations asking for intervention to prevent the protection of unborn children from abortion in the US. The plea condemns the Supreme Court’s historic decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, saying that, “People residing in the US who can become pregnant are facing a human rights crisis.” The letter also suggests a number of troubling actions for the UN to take, including “calls for the US to comply with its obligations under international law, and calls for private companies to take a number of actions to protect reproductive rights.”

             While the abortion industry fights tooth and tail to perpetuate the idea that the Dobbs decision made the US radically out of step with the rest of the world, this narrative is far from the truth. Prior to the Dobbs decision, abortion laws in the US were among the most extreme in the world; the national baseline standard was legal abortion at any point in gestation, for any reason. States could not protect children prior to viability – which the law maintained at around 24 weeks gestation, despite children having survived birth as early in gestation as 21 weeks and one day. US abortion laws were on par with only five other nations in the world, the majority of whom are notorious human rights abusers: Canada, China, Viet Nam, and North and South Korea. By contrast, only three out of 52 European nations fail to protect the unborn after 15 weeks gestation.

             The Dobbs decision did not make the US more extreme – it made it possible for our nation to leave the ranks of human rights abusers and protect life in the womb. While it is true that an abortion crisis exists and poses a threat to human rights, the UN would be remiss to challenge pro-life states by misidentifying who the victims of said crisis really are. … An abortion intentionally ends the life of a human being and is, consequently, a violation of human rights.

             Even beyond their clear desire to ignore the dignity of unborn children, it is disturbing that self-proclaimed human rights organizations would appeal to an international body as corrupt as the UN as the arbiters of good judgment when it comes to human rights. After all, the UN’s Human Rights Council, which exists for “strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe” includes such notorious violators as Canada, China and Viet Nam. … In China, abortion is used as a form of torture and population control against Uyghur women. Meanwhile, in Viet Nam, abortion is used to perpetuate cultural sexism by empowering “son preference” – a practice in which unborn babies determined to be girls are aborted, because sons are more highly valued that daughters.

             Perhaps equally as concerning is the UN’s disregard for tackling the true human rights violations being committed by its Human Rights Council and the organization’s track record for manipulating developing nations into legalizing abortion in exchange for needed resources and aid. In her book Target Africa, pro-life Nigerian activist Obianuju Ekeocha writes about how “international organizations such as the UN use their power and influence to spread the pro-abortion agenda all over the globe, especially in the developing world.” Despite pressure campaigns from international organizations like the UN, there is still no nation in Africa where unborn children are not protected after 12 weeks gestation.

             The letter to the UN concludes by saying, “With the stroke of a pen and without sound legal reasoning, the US Supreme Court has stripped women and girls in the US of legal protections necessary to ensure their ability to live with dignity.” But there is no dignity in abortion – only bloodshed and desecration of the inherent dignity of all human beings. The US has taken an immense step toward protecting human rights by allowing elected legislators to protect life in the womb; the hypocritical UN would do better to focus on the real human rights atrocities being committed by its member states than to mess with pro-life America.

Look Who’s Been Bankrolling the Abortion Campaign

March 3, 2023, National Right to Life News report by Kelsey Hazzard

             Sam Bankman-Fried, infamous for his role in the collapse of FTX that caused huge losses for cryptocurrency investors, already faced numerous fraud and conspiracy charges for stealing from customers. Now federal prosecutors in New York have indicted Bankman-Fried for making unlawful political donations The alleged scheme involved “siphon[ing] off FTX’s customer funds and deploy[ing] them for political causes” using shell donors.

             Vox reporter Andrew Prokop identifies one of those shell donors as Nishad Singh, a former FTX executive who plans to plead guilty to fraud. Per Vox: “In 2022, Singh’s donations included $4 million to Reproductive Freedom for All, a group supporting an abortion rights ballot initiative in Michigan; $2.25 million to Women Vote!, the independent expenditure arm of Emily’s List, a group supporting pro-abortion-rights women candidates; and $1.1 million to the LGBTQ Victory Fund, money used to support Becca Balint’s winning Democratic primary bid for Vermont’s Congressional seat.

             Michigan’s disastrous pro-abortion ballot initiative eliminated informed consent, parental consent for minors, the state ban on barbaric partial-birth abortions and the requirement that only doctors perform abortions That $4 million contribution, made with stolen funds and in violation of federal election laws, constituted 8.8% of the campaign’s budget.

             Would the ballot initiative have passed in the absence of this fraud? We will never know, but Sam Bankman-Fried and Nishad Singh may be personally responsible for the deaths of countless unborn children – a far worse stain on their consciences than their financial misconduct. … This follows a troubling national pattern in which high-income oligarchs tend to support abortion while low-and middle-income working Americans tend to oppose it, making it easy for the abortion industry to outspend us.

A Welcome New Voice from Within the U.S. House

March 6, 2023, news release published by The Washington Stand, issued by US Representatives Mary Miller (R-IL), Brian Babin (R-TX) and Diana Harshbarger (R-TN)

             For years, we have witnessed a concerted effort by activists on the Left to abolish the natural family. The natural family, a man and a woman committed for life to each other and to their children, was ordained by God as the foundation of our society. The natural family is essential for a nation to prosper, because the family is the root of self-government, service, community and personal responsibility. That is why we are proudly launching the Congressional Family Caucus to defend the interests of families in Washington.

             The mission of the radical Left is clear: replace the natural family with the federal government. The Left advances abortion, fatherlessness, surgical castration and atheism. These woke progressives attempt to subvert parental rights by eliminating parental consent for abortion and “gender transition” procedures. They fill school curriculums with perverse transgender ideology and racist critical race theory.

             The marriage-based family is under attack, and we should not embrace a culture that works to remove these foundations of our society that have been affirmed throughout human history.

             Today, too many conservatives are afraid to glorify God in public life or acknowledge the irreplaceable benefit of having a mother and a father in the home. We believe we have a moral obligation as servant representatives to protect and conserve the family. We cannot allow the Left to continue to advance their dogma that children belong more to the state than to their own parents.

             The Congressional Family Caucus will serve to defend the natural family from attempts by the radical Left to erode this core foundation of our society. We will initiate legislation favorable to American families and discuss the effects major legislation will have on the family.

             A happy family is a blessing from God and is foundational to human flourishing. The Congressional Family Caucus will promote policies that are God-driven and family-focused in order to conserve and protect American families and ensure they prosper for years to come. We look forward to sharing this message and officially launching the Congressional Family Caucus in the United States Congress.