The late-term abortionist of record, Leroy Carhart, wanted to start his grisly practice in Nebraska but has been blocked by a new Nebraska law which prohibits abortions after 20 weeks when the unborn child is capable of feeling pain.
Carhart decided to move his operation to Council Bluffs, Iowa and to Indianapolis and Maryland. Not so fast. The Council Bluffs City Council voted unanimously to prevent Carhart from obtaining the land on which he intended to build his abortion clinic.
Also flexing their muscles on this issue are Iowa lawmakers who plan to introduce legislation like Nebraska’s to ensure that Carhart’s late-term abortion practice doesn’t see the light of day in Iowa. Go Iowa!
There is much to be thankful for at Thanksgiving 2010. Here are the top ten reasons for which we give thanks.
A loving God whose work we accomplish.
Our new right-to-life Governor, Congressmen and state legislators who give renewed breath and dimension to public policy efforts to protect human life.
Our Wisconsin abortion and assisted suicide bans which remain in place.
Babies saved from abortion.
Mothers who rejected abortion and are spared a lifetime of emotional pain.
Fathers who love and support their wives and nurture their children.
Contributors to WRTL who make our work possible.
Volunteers who keep the cause alive and growing.
Young people who give right-to-life efforts a great future.
The precious gift of life itself which we all enjoy.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee holds critical importance in the upcoming session of Congress. This committee will lead the fight to repeal or water down Obamacare and is also the place where numbers of key right-to-life issues land, particularly in the Subcommitteee on Health.
“There is no committee of the House of Representative that has policy and oversight jurisdiction over as many areas of concern to the pro-life movement as the House Committee on Energy and Commerce,” writes National Right to Life in a letter to the House Republican Steering Committee. “These include major federal health programs (most of which involve abortion policy issues), regulation of biomedical research (including research involving human embryos), and regulation of drugs (including abortion-inducing drugs), to name a few.”
In line to chair this powerful committee is Rep. Fred Upton, no friend to the right-to-life movement, having compiled one of the weakest right-to-life voting records over the past 24 years. Upton is a major fan of Planned Parenthood.
National Right to Life has asked the House Steering Committee to deny this chairmanship to Upton. If for reasons of seniority he is given the chairmanship, NRLC is asking that Congressman Joe Pitts be named chair of the Health Subcommittee where most of these matters land. NRLC further requests that vacancies in the Health Subcommittee be filled by Members who are “firmly committed to pro-life positions.”
Planned Parenthood and NARAL are vehemently opposed to the appointment of Pitts as Health Subcommittee Chair.
This fight is a test for the heart and soul of the new Congress. Will they lead on dismantling Obamacare and protecting human life, or cave in to the pro-abortion lobby?
Four people who are considered famous — what common story do they share?
Tim Tebow: Heisman trophy winner, quarterback for the Denver Broncos.
Mike Singletary: Star football player and coach of the San Francisco 49ers.
Andrea Bocelli: Blind singer who has thrilled the world with his beautiful tenor voice.
Susan Boyle: Made history when her soulful singing audition on Britain’s Got Talent became a youtube sensation.
All of their mothers were advised to abort them. The “excuses” are all too familiar. Your child will have multiple problems if he/she is born. You will die if you give birth.
Last night, we were privileged to hear Pam Tebow, Tim Tebow’s mother, tell her story at a Veritas Society event. Pam’s pregnancy was extremely difficult and she was told she would die if she didn’t abort her Timmy (as she calls him). She lived in the Philippines at the time and had grossly inadequate medical care. When Timmy was born, he was undernourished because of a small placenta attachment. Now, he’s a big strong football player because his parents had the courage to give him life.
But it is not just famous people who survive abortion encouragement. Every day in every city, mothers are urged to abort for any number of reasons. Every life deserves a chance to achieve his/her own personal destiny. That’s what makes us all equal members of the human family.
In an incredibly self-serving recent statement, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards intimated that government investment in birth control (and abortion, of course), would save taxpayer dollars because of fewer people being born.
“So, an investment in covering birth control actually in the long run is a huge cost savings because women don’t have children that they weren’t planning on having and all the sort of attendant cost for unplanned pregnancy,” Richards said on the Bill Press radio program.
Self-serving because Richards wants all of that dough for Planned Parenthood. Richards is trying to get the Obama administration (as National Right to Life warned months ago) to define birth control (which in its thinking includes abortion) as “preventative care” so PP can rake in even more taxpayer dollars under a provision of Obamacare.
Perhaps if she is successful, Richards will get another raise from PP. She currently “only” makes $385,163 (2008 numbers) plus another $11,876 in benefits. Let’s see, that’s over $1 for every abortion PP performs (324,008 recorded in 2008). It turns the stomach.
The late George Tiller of Wichita, Kansas was the late-term abortionist of last resort. It was well known that Tiller would perform the latest of late-term abortions. Since Tiller’s death, LeRoy Carhart of Nebraska has attempted to step into the breach to provide this ghastly “service.”
Nebraska foiled Carhart’s plans by passing a new law, now in effect, which prohibits the performance of abortions on unborn babies capable of feeling pain, defined as 20 weeks or more into the pregnancy.
Carhart announced last week that he plans to open late-term abortion practices in Iowa, Indiana and Maryland. The Iowa clinic would open sometime after the first of the year in Council Bluffs, right across the river from Omaha, Nebraska. The Maryland location would be just outside of Washington, DC with a planned December 6 opening. In Indianapolis, Carhart will expand an already existing abortion business.
Carhart estimates it will cost $1.5 million to open these new centers and is looking for financial backing and fund-raising. Carhart also indicted he will challenge the Nebraska law in court.
Watch for legislative action in the affected states to mirror the Nebraska law, shifting Carhart from state to state as he attempts to take his grisly trade to new areas of the country.
Yesterday, I was privileged to speak as a panelist at the Early Stage Symposium in Madison. Topic: “On again, off again: The unpredictable nature of human embryonic stem cell research.”
Also on the panel was Dr. Timothy Kamp, an embryonic stem cell researcher. Probably one of the most amazing things he said is that it is widely held in the scientific world that a human embryo is not a human life. While totally inaccurate, it is understandable from his viewpoint. He wants to be viewed as one who is forging new frontiers to improve the human condition, rather than one who destroys human life.
I was able to make many solid points in the discussion, promoting the distinct advantages of adult stem cell and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell research which are rapidly advancing and not reliant on destroying embryos for results. These two ethical forms of research are better for patients as they have the ability, which embryonic does not, of producing patient-specific cells which will not be rejected.
The unpredictability factor is very real for embryonic stem cell researchers. As taxpayer funds dry up, as they may given the enormous imbalances in federal and state budgets, “it is least painful to cut that which is controversial,” I stated. The outcome of the Dickey-Wicker amendment, which prohibits taxpayer funds for embryo destruction, in the courts and either the lame-duck or the new Congress should give researchers cause for concern. Perhaps, so much concern that they will turn their efforts into moving forward with the two types of superior and ethical stem cell research available to them.
In 2009 we learned that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did a “threat assessment” on Wisconsin right-to-life groups (presumably including Wisconsin Right to Life) because of our opposition to a late-term abortion plan approved for the Madison Surgery Center. DHS eventually admitted the department had worked with local law enforcement in “the collection, retention and dissemination of U.S. person information regarding protest groups which posed no threat to homeland security and…violated [DHS] Guidelines.”
Now comes disturbing news that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is working with the FBI and staunch abortion advocates to target peaceful right-to-life activists as terrorists and label their peaceful activities as “violence.” LifeNews.com reports that in August, the FBI and DOJ along with Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Federation and The Feminist Majority Foundation had a training seminar in Portland, OR.
Right-to-life individuals attended the seminar which featured a document entitled “Resource Guide: Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers.” Alliance Defense Fund attorney Matthew Bowman points out that: “The analyses urging the prosecution of ‘clinic violence’ [define] a large swath of nonviolent, legal, free-speech activity such as picketing under the broad category of ‘violence’…This raises serious concerns about the United States government investigating peaceful, legal free speech activity in efforts that are ostensibly aimed at violence.”
The Resource Guide names prominent right-to-life organizations and leaders and targets their websites. Included in this group are our parent organization, National Right to Life, and also Priests for Life and 40 Days for Life. This suggests that at the bidding of pro-abortion groups, the DOJ and FBI have drawn up a “hit list” for prosecution of non-violent right-to-life groups. An ominous development, indeed.
People come to a right-to-life position from many different experiences or exposures to information. President George W. Bush describes in his new book, “Decision Points,” what shaped his views early in life.
When he was a teenager, Bush’s mother, Barbara, had a miscarriage. She gave him a jar which contained the miscarried baby. Bush recalls, “I never expected to see the remains of the fetus, which she had saved in a jar to bring to the hospital. There was a human life, a little brother or sister.”
Bush continues, “There’s no question that affected me, a philosophy that we should respect life.”
I am deeply moved by this story – how a young teenager was profoundly impacted for a lifetime by seeing his dead little brother or sister in a jar and recognizing him/her as a human life to be respected. The right-to-life movement has much for which to thank President Bush. Hearing this story, told publicly for the first time, gives a deeper understanding of what motivated him as the world’s most powerful leader to lead efforts to protect human life.
Legislative agendas are being discussed in the wake of our historic election last week which realized significant right-to-life gains. At the federal level, National Right to Life (NRL) and other groups are putting a “Stop Abortion Funding” campaign at the top of the list.
NRL Legislative Director Doug Johnson says: “In just two years, President Obama and his allies in Congress have established multiple new pipelines to subsidize abortion and abortion providers. These setbacks underscore the urgent need for enactment of a permanent, government-wide ban on federal funding of abortion — a ban that would endure no matter who is in the White House.”
No more piecemeal approach where Congress has to amend appropriations bills every year. Fortunately, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) has already introduced such legislation called the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. It would apply to all government programs including Obamacare.
This measure should be wildly popular not only in the right-to-life community, but in the general public. For years, polls have indicated that Americans do not want their taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions. It is time to make a permanent federal funding ban a reality.
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