Illinois Right to Life Committee
DECEMBER 2005
December, 2005 Pro-Life News (see articles below): 12/27/05
Christmas message includes the unborn 12/20/05 Better
news than expected 12/13/05 Fact or fiction? 12/06/05 Morning-after pill expert admits it will not reduce pregnancies or abortions 12/02/05 Assessment of Supreme Court hearings on two Pro-Life cases
Illinois Right to Life News for Tuesday, December 27, 2005 Christmas message includes the
unborn Even though we have already
celebrated Christmas, I want to respond to an article by Jesse Jackson that appeared in
the December 20th Chicago Sun-Times under the heading "Messiah's message lost
in shuffle." Jackson included the
following three statements on how the Christmas story instructs us
to treasure and protect children and the "least of these":
Since Mr. Jackson supports
the "right to abortion", what magic occurs at birth that instructs him to
treasure "the poorest child of a homeless couple" when he defends abortion
providers who would advise that same couple to get an abortion because they certainly
have no means to bring a child into this world? (Here is testimony that
specifically addresses this point: From One Mom to Another: Keep
Your Baby) Are not unborn children among
the "least of these" that need to be treated with respect rather than killed
because of the inconvenience they present to their parents? If we are instructed to
"protect babies in the dawn of life", does not that dawn of life begin before
birth? Did not the "fetus" John the Baptist jump in his mother's womb
because of the presence of the "fetus" Jesus when Elizabeth heard Mary's
greeting? Jackson is certainly correct
that the Messiah's message is lost in the shuffle, but it will remain lost until respect
for life in the womb is restored, because there is no magic that happens at birth to
instruct humans to treat the "least of these" differently after birth when they
are viewed as disposable before birth. Let us again have a Merry
Christmas that includes babies in the womb. That is where Jesus was when Joseph and
Mary were "forced by an oppressive government to leave their home to travel far to be
counted in the census." In today's world the "solution" would be to
abort him to make that trip less difficult. The question to be asked is
not "Why do Pro-Lifers care so much about the fetus, but refuse to support welfare
programs to feed them once they are born?" but rather the question that Jackson must
answer is: How can you seriously expect people to treasure and protect children and
the "least of these" when you support their mothers' "right" to have
them killed before birth because they are inconvenient, the innocent result of rape,
or have been detected to have deformities or other serious health issues? We will
find the true meaning of Christmas if we respect these lives.
Illinois Right to Life News for Tuesday, December 20, 2005 Better news than expected Every once in awhile the news
turns out better than expected. Right now, we
even have two such cases. I recently
discussed the threat that the New Hampshire parental notification case before the U.S.
Supreme Court could pose for other state laws around the nation. Last week it appeared that Senate Democrats had
succeeded in blocking passage of H.R. 2520, the umbilical cord blood stem cell funding
bill. In both cases, the situation turns out
to be better than expected. Thanks to insights provided
by Paul Linton, who filed a friend of the court brief in the New Hampshire case on behalf
of the Thomas More Society in Chicago, it turns out that the “health exception”
issue was narrowed by attorneys for Planned Parenthood (PP) in preparation for the
November 30th hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court.
In response to the issues raised by the State of New Hampshire to defend the law,
PP attorneys admitted that the only issue
was whether the law requires a narrow, Pennsylvania-style medical emergency exception, not
an open-ended, undefined and vague "health" exception. Since such medical emergency
exceptions already exist in most of the state parental notification and consent laws,
resolution of this issue will not threaten parental involvement laws in other states. The worst-case scenario will be the need to amend
the laws in just a few states to add a medical emergency exception. Since the New Hampshire law was modeled after the
Minnesota law, it would be one of the affected states.
If the Supreme Court decision produces such a result, this requirement would
have very little impact state laws regulating abortion.
Avoiding any possibility that
a much broader health exception might be needed to make the New Hampshire law
constitutional is great news. It does raise
a question. What motivated PP to narrow the
“health exception” issue to a medical emergency exception? Did they conclude the Supreme Court was less
likely to accept a broad health exception? Are
they trying to salvage some kind of decision they can call a victory? The second instance of good
news is the passage of the umbilical cord blood stem cell funding bill. The bill provides the means to establish public
cord blood banks to facilitate research and treatments.
Since many successes have been achieved using stem cells obtained from cord
blood, these added resources should contribute to even greater progress. Late in the evening on December 16th the U.S.
Senate approved this bill. Earlier in the
day, approval had looked unlikely because Democrats wanted to link consideration of this
bill with scheduling a vote on a controversial bill to expand funding for embryonic stem
cell research. Apparently, public pressure
for passage of the bill prevailed. The House
of Representatives had passed this bill overwhelmingly earlier this year. The Senate passed the bill with an amendment,
using a procedure called unanimous consent. On
December 17th the House accepted the amended bill and sent it to President Bush for his
signature. On December 20th Bush signed the
bill into law. Later than usual, the
Illinois abortion statistics for 2004 were just released.
The number of abortions committed in Illinois during 2004 totaled 41,577. The good news is that this number is a slight drop
from the 42,228 abortions committed during 2003. Given
my understanding that RU 486 abortions are included in these counts, the trend for fewer
abortions in Illinois continues. Of course,
41,577 abortions represent a tremendous loss of life, and over half of these lives
(21,786) were snuffed out in Cook County.
Illinois Right to Life News for Tuesday, December 13, 2005 Fact or fiction? Cindy Richards presented
"facts" in her December 7th Chicago Sun-Times article "Choices
dwindling, state by state" to support her premise that "reproductive
rights" are seriously threatened. I did the research that confirms her
"facts" are incorrect. Planned Parenthood's web site indicates that Indiana requires consent of only one parent for a pregnant teen to get an abortion. If a teenager needed a judge to approve her abortion, it was not because of her parents' divorce dispute. Maybe she needed the judge because neither parent would consent, and she was trying to bypass her parents. Missouri's right to know law has been blocked by temporary restraining orders since September 2003. On December 7, 2005 a federal judge allowed the 24-hour waiting period to take effect, but kept the restraining order on the requirement to provide information to women seeking abortion. Thus, the legal situation makes it impossible that Missouri law "last month forced several hundred women to listen to and watch anti-abortion propaganda before being allowed to have an abortion." Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin's web site indicates that a 24-hour waiting period is needed before an abortion. This information means there is no way that a Wisconsin rape victim slept in her car for two days because of a 48-hour waiting period before an abortion. Planned Parenthood has a detailed article entitled "Obstructing Access to Emergency Contraception in Hospital Emergency Rooms" that fails to raise the issue of an Iowa law prohibiting emergency room doctors from telling female sexual assault victims about emergency contraception. Since Iowa has a pro-abortion governor who has vetoed a number of bills intended to regulate abortion, it seems highly unlikely that Iowa could have such a law in force. If Iowa did have such a law, I cannot imagine that Planned Parenthood would not have taken it to court to get it enjoined. I am not aware of any state that has a law with such a prohibition. For all these reasons, I am quite certain that Iowa law does not prohibit offering information about emergency contraception in emergency rooms. The bill that would require every Virginia woman who had a miscarriage to report it to law enforcement was introduced in December 2004 and was stricken from the legislative docket on January 12, 2005 because the bill generated so much negative response. Additionally, the bill did not require the woman to report in person, nor did it require her to sign a statement swearing she did not cause an abortion. No evidence can be found on
Michigan pro-abortion, pro-life, or political web sites about any abortion-related
ballot initiatives for 2006 in Michigan. Since a ballot initiative takes a large
effort to collect signatures, it is virtually certain that "two ballot
initiatives to amend the state constitution saying that the day Roe vs. Wade is overturned
by the U.S. Supreme Court, all abortions in that state will be illegal" has not and
will not be placed on the Michigan ballot for the 2006 election. Besides, if
abortion supporters are so confident that the public demands abortion remain legal,
why should they be concerned about such a ballot initiative anyway? Don't
they believe the public would vote down such an initiative? In summary, Cindy Richards article is long on dramatics and very short on facts. The way I count it, she is zero for six on accurately presenting facts to support her premise that "reproductive rights" are seriously threatened. Even the weather reporter can do better than that. Maybe Cindy should look for a different job. Her claim to present facts demonstrates total failure to research the information presented, resulting in a serious misrepresentation of the facts to the readers of the Chicago Sun-Times. Do Sun-Times editors care?
Illinois Right to Life News for Tuesday, December 6, 2005 Morning-after pill expert admits it will not reduce pregnancies or abortions As you may be aware, supporters of easy access to the morning-after pill (called Plan B) proudly proclaim that once Plan B is readily available, unwanted pregnancies and abortions will be cut in half. If it wasn’t for those nasty anti-choice right-wing extremists opposing both science and logic, abortion could already be reduced, as they claim to want. Some Plan B supporters even attempt to claim that Pro-Lifers are responsible for a rise in abortions. Of course, even the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute cannot produce statistics to support that outlandish claim. There is no truth to their silver bullet claim about Plan B reducing unwanted
pregnancies and abortions either! On December
6th Kirsten Moore, president and CEO of Reproductive Health Technologies Project, admitted
at a National Press Club forum that "real world" experience of easy access to
the morning-after pill has not reduced the numbers of pregnancies or abortions. "I
think it's an honest question; the experts had estimated that we would see a drop by up to
half in the rates of unintended pregnancy and the rates of abortion. And in fact, in the real world we're not seeing
that," Moore said. Moore indicated she
doesn't see across the board increases in pregnancy or abortion rates either, and added
that "where we see the increases, correlation does not equal causation." This now admittedly unfounded claim has been a rallying point for
abortion advocates who want the FDA to approve Plan B, which sometimes causes an abortion,
for over the counter sale and wants mandates forcing pharmacists to fill prescriptions for
it. Wendy
Wright, the executive vice-president of Concerned Women for America, said Moore's
admission that the Plan B drugs don't reduce abortion or pregnancy rates "knocks the
legs out from the hard-charging coalition intent on making this drug as easy to get as
toothpaste." "The claim that
pregnancies and abortions would reduce by half is based not on science or fact, but
'faith' with no substance in reality," Wright explained. Studies, including one by a Planned Parenthood medical director in San Francisco, find the morning after pill does not reduce abortion and pregnancy rates. In fact, Wright explained, the studies she's seen also show an increase in the rate of sexually transmitted diseases, which the drug is not intended to prevent. "The FDA rightly decided to decline over-the-counter access for Plan B based on a lack of evidence that it could be used safely by adolescents. The FDA should not be pressured by congressmen and abortion activists whose primary argument has no basis in facts," Wright concluded.
Illinois Right to Life News for Friday, December 2, 2005 Assessment of Supreme Court hearings on two Pro-Life cases The Supreme Court hearings in NOW v. Scheidler and Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England were held on November 30th as scheduled. In NOW v. Scheidler, the questioning from the Supreme Court justices of counsel representing National Organization for Women (NOW) was intense. The best example to sum up the situation was the interaction with Justice Scalia who observed, “you said earlier that we "reversed and remanded." That was not in our opinion, though, as it sometimes is. It doesn't say that. Our opinion here just says “reversed." After counsel for NOW tried to explain why the Seventh Circuit did not reverse the judgment as directed, Justice Scalia responded, “I see. And they interpreted ‘reversed’ to mean ‘remanded’.” Based on this and many other examples of questioning, Pro-Life Action League is confident that they will finally receive belated justice and a definitive message to the Seventh Circuit to reverse the judgment and injunction imposed under RICO. Is it possible that Joe Scheidler will no longer be considered a racketeer? Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England brought out the hypothetical thinking that some members of the Supreme Court use to justify their opposition to common sense regulations such as parental notification before an abortion is performed on an underage girl. Unfortunately, until Samuel Alito is confirmed, it is difficult to find more than four solid votes to uphold the New Hampshire law. Both Clinton appointees, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, appear very unlikely to uphold parental notification. John Paul Stevens and David Souter can be counted on to join them. If Sandra Day O’Connor got the opportunity to vote on this case, it seems the law could easily be declared unconstitutional on a 5-4 vote for lack of a health exception. Such an outcome would totally ignore the Supreme Court precedents set in 1900 and 1992 and the actual experience with existing state laws. The reality that this case represents a real threat to existing parental notification or consent laws already in force in over 30 states is shrouded by the semantics used by abortion supporters. The lower courts declared the New Hampshire law unconstitutional because it lacked a health exception. Somehow, that phrase has been turned into a discussion about medical emergencies. In fact, the exception for life of the mother addresses medical emergencies, and the law provides that exception. Pro-abortionists insist that there is no
provision in New Hampshire's law for medical emergencies.
Not so, says Mary Balch, NRLC's director of State Legislation. "The recent claim made by pro-abortion
activists that the law doesn't contain a medical emergency exception is a red
herring," she says. The law does not preclude a doctor from treating any medical
emergencies and does contain an exception allowing immediate abortions for
life-threatening medical emergencies. In a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the New Hampshire law, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) contended that the Supreme Court has never held that all laws regulating the provision of abortions must contain a “health” exception - as the Federal appeals court concluded. In fact, the ACLJ brief highlights the fact that the high court has rejected “health” exceptions in the past in the area of abortion funding and parental involvement laws. The ACLJ brief argues that to require a “health” exception for parental notification laws “would be to make a shambles of existing abortion regulations.” Further, the ACLJ brief cited specific Congressional testimony from women who received secret abortions as children and whose testimony dramatically demonstrated that parental notification laws are needed and would play a vital role in the health and safety of children who are considering abortions. Judge
Breyer expressed concern about a teenage girl entering hospital at 2:00am with a medical
emergency. As he described it her blood
pressure was skyrocketing and she needed the abortion to bring it down or she would become
sterile. I strongly suspect that there is no
medical correlation between high blood pressure and sterility. Breyer’s example is so hypothetical that it
is probably a physical impossibility. “The key word in the Supreme Court case is ‘hypothetical,’” the CWA added. “If the court rules in Ayotte that hypothetical exceptions are irrelevant, abortion legalities will be measured against the Constitution – just like other legal decisions – and sanity will have returned to judicial decision-making.” If it takes placing Samuel Alito on the court to achieve this sanity, we can only conclude that the court has already moved far out of the mainstream. At least 70% of the nation supports parental notification laws while a majority of Supreme Court members apparently oppose these laws.
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