Supreme Court: Kentucky’s pro-life law stands
In early December, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a ruling which upheld a Kentucky law (HB 2) that requires abortionists to perform an ultrasound, describe the results to the mother, and play the unborn baby’s heartbeat aloud before an abortion. Doctors who violate the law will be fined. The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law saying it violated doctors’ right to free speech. The law was upheld by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court said, “As a First Amendment matter, there is nothing suspect with a state’s requiring a doctor, before performing an abortion, to make truthful, non-misleading factual disclosures, relevant to informed consent, even if those disclosures relate to unborn life and have the effect of persuading the patient not to have an abortion.”
Jeanne Mancini, President of March for Life, celebrated saying, “Women facing an unexpected pregnancy deserve to have as much medixcally and technically accurate information as possible when they are making what could be the most important decision of their lives.” [www.world.wng.org, 12/9/19; Lifenews.com, 12/10/19]
Planned Parenthood’s annual report
U.S. abortion numbers have not been this low since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion on demand in 1973. Statistics from the Guttmacher Institute, formerly Planned Parenthood’s research arm, have shown a drop in both the number of abortions and the abortion rate.
Ironically, Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business, revealed in its own annual report that Planned Parenthood’s abortion numbers are up and other services are down. The report shows Planned Parenthood affiliates performed 345,672 abortions from October 1, 2017 to September 30, 2018, the highest number reported in a single year. Its facilities performed 35 abortions for every instance of prenatal care and 81 abortions for every adoption referral. The business also received the highest amount of government funding it has ever received in one year, a 3.9 percent increase over the previous year. Numbers of breast exams, pap tests, cancer screenings and prevention procedures, well-woman exams, and provisions of birth control information and services were all down. [Lifenews.com, 1/9/20]
Abortion decimates black community
The Reverend Bill Owens, a well-known black pastor and president of the Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP), laments the impact abortion has had on black communities. Owens says the black community has been “decimated” by abortion. He is among the growing number of black leaders who are speaking against abortion and urging the protection of human rights for all people. Owen explains, “The black church has long been the center of the black community. But, leftists are now actively trying to push Christians out of the public square. When they’re not trying to silence us, they’re mocking us or our values.”
Angela Stanton King, a member of the National Black Prolife Coalition, explains, “My biggest issue with the current Democratic candidates as it comes to the black community is that all of them are pushing for poor women of color to have access to abortion. To me, personally, you don’t have my best interests in mind if the only thing you are offering me is access to abortion to kill my child before it has the chance to live, and then also free welfare.”
Recently, rapper Kayne West waded into the foray and, in an interview addressing political and cultural issues and leaders, accused them of “making us abort our children, gosh now they’re killed …” He was promptly called anti-choice and anti-Democrat.
It is estimated that 20 million unborn black babies have been aborted since 1973, when the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade legalized abortion. Though African Americans comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population, they have nearly 40 percent of all abortions. Seventy-nine percent of Planned Parenthood surgical abortion facilities are within walking distance of minority neighborhoods. More African American babies are aborted in New York City than are born each year. [Lifenews.com, 11/26/19, 12/1/19; 12/18/20]
Planned Parenthood in LA schools
Planned Parenthood is targeting students in low-income areas by opening what are called “wellbeing centers” in 50 Los Angeles schools, the second-largest school district in the country. This secretive process will give the abortion giant access to teenagers without parents ever finding out. Students will be able to make appointments and the medical files will not be accessible to school personnel. Planned Parenthood will spend $10 million on the centers, five of which are already functioning.
At these centers, students will get state-sponsored advice on gender issues and sexual experimentation. California state law allows minors to consent to some medical services, receive birth control, and access so-called “pregnancy counseling” without having to inform a parent.
The Centers for Disease Control has reported, “More than 80 percent of teens in the [comprehensive sex ed] program fare either worse or no better than their peers who were not a part of the program.” The CDC found students were more likely to begin having sex, more likely to have oral sex, and more likely to get pregnant than students not attending the programs. It also found that a majority of students actually want to hear an abstinence message.
In an admission to the undisclosed, hush-hush meetings and the secretive nature of the process, Sue Dunlap, president of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles, admitted she expects a “healthy debate” as the news “becomes public.” [Tony Perkins’s Washington Update, 12/16/19; Lifenews.com, 12/17/19, 12/11/19]
Trump’s judicial appointments continue
While national attention was focused on the impeachment hearings, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was busy pushing judicial nominations through the Senate. As of January 9, the Senate has confirmed 187 judges nominated by Trump, including two justices of the Supreme Court, 50 appeals court judges, 133 district court judges, and two judges of international trade. These confirmations, which were primarily party line votes, are significant because abortion supporters have long relied on liberal judges to keep abortion legal and unrestricted. The makeup of the courts was cited by many as a strong motivator in their decision to vote for Trump.
Trump’s appointments have included two Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, along with newly confirmed U.S. District Judge Sarah Pitlyk. In early December, the Senate voted 49-44 to confirm Pitlyk. Only one Republican, Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) opposed Pitlyk’s conformation; no Senate Democrats broke ranks to vote for her confirmation. Pitlyk served as a law clerk to Judge Kavanaugh prior to his confirmation to the Supreme Court. She was involved in the defense of David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress, the organization that exposed Planned Parenthood’s illegal sales of body parts from aborted babies. She is known as a strong human rights advocate and defender of religious freedom.
In mid-December, the U.S. Senate confirmed two judges, including Deputy Attorney General Laurence VanDyke, for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Leading pro-life groups praised VanDyke’s confirmation. Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life said that with those appointments, “the liberal rubber stamp of the Ninth Circuit has been stilled.” [Lifenews.com, 12/4/19, 12/11/19]
Bioethics movement’s utilitarian agenda
Bioethicist Wesley Smith warns that the bioethics movement, along with a supportive media, is creating a scenario where “legalized euthanasia, free and unfettered abortion at all stages of gestation, infanticide, eugenic embryo engineering, invidious forms of health-care rationing based on ‘quality of life,’ etc., are all part of the mainstream bioethics agenda, or at the very least, are seen as respectable advocacy memes.” This would radically change the way our healthcare system treats unborn babies, disabled people, and the elderly.
New York OB-GYN Dr. Regina Frost explains, “I cannot take the life of a child in one room and guide another child into this world in the next. Nor can I care for one elderly woman while helping another end her life. That would not only undermine my most deeply held religious beliefs and my medical judgment, but also the oath I took as a medical professional.” Frost warns that, without conscience protections for medical professionals, doctors and nurses are at increased risk of being forced to perform procedures that violate our core beliefs.”
Smith argues, “The ongoing moral cleansing of the medical professions — currently waged in the media and bioethics movement’s policy offensive against ‘medical conscience’ — may soon expand to preventing would-be doctors, nurses, and pharmacists from obtaining professional educations.” Canadian ethicist and Queen’s University professor, Uda Schuklenk has gone so far as to favor barring students with “undesirable” pro-sanctity-of-life ethics from being admitted into medical schools. [Lifenews.com, 12/30/19, 1/14/20; www.nationalreview.com, 11/26/19; www.globalnews.ca, 11/23/19]
