Illinois Right to Life Committee
JANUARY 2007
January, 2007 Pro-Life News (see articles below): 01/30/07 Parental Notice of Abortion protects teens 01/23/07 Good News for defenders of life in Illinois 01/19/07 Both U.S. Senators from Illinois Vote to Suspend Free Speech 01/12/07 Down's Syndrome babies to be placed at greater risk of abortion 01/05/07 Killing human embryos as an act of power
Illinois Right to Life News for Tuesday, January 30, 2007 Parental Notice of Abortion protects teens
Illinois Right to Life News for Tuesday, January 23, 2007 Good News for defenders of life in Illinois One week ago this newsline assigned homework. Even though those assignments did not get the exact results requested, success was achieved in both cases. First, the U.S. Senate did pass an amendment to prevent the ethics bill they later passed from infringing on free speech. Unfortunately, requests made to our Senators from Illinois fell on deaf ears, and they both voted to suspend free speech for grassroots organizations. The second assignment was to ask States Attorney Joe Birkett to take action, requesting that the Federal injunction preventing parental notice from taking effect be overturned. Birkett did not get a chance to take this action because Attorney General Lisa Madigan took the necessary action on January 19th. Her request asks the Federal Court to overturn the injunction blocking the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995 from taking effect. This is a very positive step forward. Hopefully, we will soon have effective parental notice in Illinois so our state is no longer the place to bring underage girls from other states as a means to avoid the parental involvement laws of all surrounding states. Abortionists in Illinois could lose a good segment of business when underage girls cannot be brought into Illinois as a means to avoid the parental involvement laws of their home states. Not noticed until Monday, January 22nd, last Friday Judge David Coar filed his decision in the case of Illinois Choose Life against the Illinois Secretary of State regarding Choose Life license plates. Judge Coar’s decision is a complete victory for allowing Choose Life specialty license plates in Illinois. He even mandates that these plates become available by the end of February if the mandated minimum sales of 850 are achieved. Of course, Secretary of State Jesse White plans to ask Attorney General Lisa Madigan to appeal this ruling so this availability date is not likely to be achieved. Even so, this step creates tremendous movement toward the day when Choose Life plates will be available in Illinois. Previous judicial appeals in other states have had very little success in stopping Choose Life plates. Of course, not everything can be rosy.
There are some topics the mainstream
media just wants to ignore. January 22nd was the 34th anniversary of the infamous
Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court to legalize abortion.
The March for Life in Washington, D.C. drew as many as 200,000 marchers. As usual, this tremendous outpouring in defense
of life got nothing more than spotty coverage in the mainstream media. The media also ignored the
controversy over the threat to free speech in the Senate ethics bill. Adoption of the amendment that preserved the free
speech rights of conservative voices around the nation was totally ignored. Attorney General Lisa Madigan
filed her request with the Federal District Court to remove their injunction against
enforcement of the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995 with intent to minimize news
coverage. By acting late Friday Madigan minimized news coverage, and the media kept
the secret, except for a few minor leaks. Even without news coverage, these events create a significant amount of good news, especially for defenders of life in Illinois.
Illinois Right to Life News for Friday, January 19, 2007 Both U.S. Senators from Illinois Vote to Suspend Free Speech
Illinois Right to Life News for Friday, January 12, 2007 Down's Syndrome babies to be placed at greater risk of abortion When Jill Stanek placed the focus on live birth abortion at Christ Hospital, the pressure forced the hospital to change its policy to remove Down’s Syndrome babies from the list of serious disabilities that could justify an “early termination of pregnancy.” Now, in the same month, both the American College of Obstetricians
and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada
(SOGC) are recommending that all pregnant women, not just those over 35, should be
screened to discover whether they have a risk of bearing a child with Down’s
Syndrome, including use of invasive procedures such as amniocentesis. Pro-Life leaders expressed outrage at the eugenic implications of the recommendations. Consider the coldness and lack of compassion of saying it is only “fair” that younger women have the same opportunity to abort a potential Down’s Syndrome baby as older women. With the culture of death, equal opportunity killing is very important! Do we have some brave physicians who are willing to resign from these organizations as they sink further into the culture of death? The U.S. Congress is ready to join in the killing by approving H.R. 3 to fund embryonic stem cell research that requires the killing of embryos. The House passed the bill on January 11th by a vote of 253 to 174. This result is more than 30 votes short of vote total needed to override a Presidential veto. Fortunately, President Bush has confirmed that he will veto the bill as he did its identical twin, H.R. 810, last year. Its good to know that we have a President who is willing to kill these bills rather than allow killing of the embryos.
Illinois Right to Life News for Friday, January 5, 2007 Killing human embryos as an act of power The culture of death has a new leader. Nancy Pelosi has proclaimed her power to the world and the lapdogs in the media willingly report her proclamation as news. What does Speaker Pelosi want to accomplish with her new power? First, she wants to use Federal funds to sacrifice human embryos for the goal of finding treatments to overcome human ailments. Next week H.R. 3 will be brought forward for a quick vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to provide this funding. Last year President Bush vetoed a similar bill, and he has indicated that he will veto H.R. 3 as well. Contrary to the dire claims of supporters of embryonic stem cell research, Bush’s veto did not prevent life saving research from continuing full bore. In fact, this veto allowed the focus of Federal funding to remain on stem cells from adult and umbilical cord blood sources. So much progress is occurring with these stem cells that real treatments and cures are already happening. More efforts are needed to move these successes from experimental to standard health care. Please immediately call your representative in the U.S. House, and your two U.S. senators, urging them to oppose federal funding of research that requires the killing of human embryos. Tell them that we do not need to kill human embryos to achieve success with stem cells. Urge other pro-life citizens to do the same. What is Speaker Pelosi’s track record on
life issues? LifeNews reports that in the
last Congressional session alone, Pelosi compiled a 0 percent pro-life voting record on 10
votes NRLC recorded. She voted four times
against a bill that would help support parental notification laws in over two dozen
states. She voted twice to force taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research, and
voted three times to spend tax money on abortions in the United States and overseas. Pelosi also refused to support a bipartisan effort
to allow Terri Schiavo's parents to take their case to prevent her former husband from
killing her to federal courts for a review. When Planned Parenthood, National Organization of Women, and NARAL Pro-Choice America are celebrating, you can be certain this transition to power is not a true victory for women. Speaker Pelosi wants to implement measures that will continue the damage done to women by the so-called sexual revolution from post-abortion syndrome to abusive relationships to impoverished single motherhood. Pray that President Bush will have the courage to veto any of these outrageous proposals that reach his desk and that enough members of Congress will sustain these vetoes.
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