First, the bad news:

Our Catholic President Dances Once Again to the Tune of the Pro-Abortion Lobby

Demonstrating, once again, his unwavering allegiance to the pro-abortion cause, our “devout” Catholic President, Joe Biden, has temporarily removed Food and Drug Administration (FDA) restrictions on mifepristone, the abortion-inducing medication, allowing abortion facilities to prescribe and sell the drug by mail after a telemedicine visit between the baby’s mother and her doctor. The FDA had required that mifepristone be prescribed after an in-person check-up because of the risk of complications. The medication has been linked to 24 deaths and at least 4000 serious complications since 2000, including excessive bleeding, severe abdominal pain, infection and hemorrhage. Even still, the abortion industry wanted the FDA safety restrictions removed, and Biden dutifully obliged them.

Pro-life advocates are concerned that mifepristone by mail will lead to more deaths and serious complications. They point to Great Britain, where the government last spring allowed mail-order delivery of the medication during the pandemic. Multiple health and safety problems and at least two deaths were reported shortly after the policy was adopted. There is also concern for misuse, as it is sometimes difficult for women to tell if they are past the 10-week gestational limit for which mifepristone is no longer appropriate. In a disturbing case, a Wisconsin man obtained mifepristone online and spiked his girlfriend’s drink with the drug after she refused to abort their unborn baby.

Still More Dancing to the Pro-Abortion Tune By Our “Devout” Catholic President

“Devout” Catholic President Joe Biden plans to remove a Trump administration rule that prevented Planned Parenthood from using Title X money for abortions, making millions of taxpayer dollars available to the abortion industry giant despite polls overwhelmingly showing that Americans do not support taxpayer funding for abortion. Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser issued a statement in response to Biden’s plans. “From day one, Dannenfelser said, “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have worked to pay back the abortion lobby that spent millions to elect them. President Trump’s Protect Life Rule respected both the plain statutory language of Title X and the strong majority of Americans who oppose using taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion on demand. Abortion is not ‘family planning’ and Biden-Harris Democrats pursue this extreme, unpopular agenda at their political peril.” Indeed, the language of Title X makes clear that funds are not to be used for abortions, stating that grants may not be used “where abortion is a method of family planning.”  A poll conducted by Marist found that Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion by 54 to 39 percent.

When Trump put the rule in place it resulted in Planned Parenthood losing out on approximately $60 million, but not because Trump kicked them out of the program. Planned Parenthood left the Title X program of its own will because of Trump’s rule, making it clear that if they could not use the money for abortions, they would not take the money at all, despite their claim that abortions represent only 3% of the services they offer. Well, why not use the money for the other services they offer? Because Planned Parenthood is in the business of abortion, and they are not interested in much else. Abortion is their money-maker.

Hawaii Passes Law Allowing Nurses to Perform Abortions

Hawaii has become the most recent state to allow advanced practice registered nurses to perform abortions, either by the surgical aspiration method or by the prescription of abortion medications. Pro-abortion Democrat Gov. David Ige signed the legislation into law on Monday, insisting that the law was necessary because Hawaii is suffering from a shortage of doctors. In reality, Hawaii and the entire country is experiencing a shortage of doctors willing to perform abortions. As a result, abortion clinics are closing, costing the abortion industry millions each year in revenue. The Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of the abortion industry, reports that in 1982 there were 2,918 abortionists practicing in the U. S. By 2017 that number had dropped to 1,587. According to the CDC, the number of abortions performed in the U. S. has declined by 57% since 1990. 122 clinics performing abortions closed between 2008 and 2017. According to Guttmacher, at least some of these closing were because older abortionists retired and younger doctors were unwilling to replace them. The percentage of surgical abortions has decline significantly with the advent of chemical abortifacients, such as mifepristone. Abortifacient drugs accounted for only 16.4% of abortions in 2008, but 39.4% in 2017.

Naturally, it remains for pro-life advocates to point out the obvious, that less qualified medical professionals performing abortions will likely result in more complications from abortions. A 2013 study, “Safety of Aspiration Abortion Performed by Nurse Practitioners, Certified Nurse Midwives, and Physician Assistants Under a California Legal Waiver,” which was funded by pro-abortion organizations as part of a lobby effort to expand the number of providers in California who could perform abortions, nevertheless concluded that abortions done by non-physicians doubled the number of complications. Hawaii Life Alliance, who lobbied against passage of the law, said, “Vacuum aspiration is performed with a machine that uses a vacuum to suck the baby out of the uterus. If women are going to choose to use this risky method where there are notable risks and complications, they need to be closely monitored and they need to have a licensed physician.” Complications of the procedure include cervical lacerations, uterine perforations, and hemorrhaging. Needless to say, the result of the procedure is death for the unborn child.

Other states that allow nurses to perform abortions include California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Virginia and Vermont.

Now, the good news:

Federal Court Upholds Ohio’s Down Syndrome Non-Discrimination Act

In 2017, the Ohio legislature passed a law banning abortions performed because an in utero child was diagnosed with Down Syndrome, or for purposes of sex-selection or race-selection. In 2018, U. S. District Court Judge Timothy Black issued a preliminary injunction against the law, preventing the law from taking effect. Judge Black is a former director and president of Planned Parenthood’s Cincinnati affiliate. He should have recused himself from the case, but he did not. In 2020, attorneys for the state argued before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that the law was constitutional because it forbids abortion for discriminatory reasons of health, sex, or race. This week, in a 9-7 ruling, the Sixth Circuit Court judges agreed, ruling against the injunction and allowing Ohio to enforce the law.

Ohio Right to Life president, Mike Gonidakis, responded to the ruling: “Ohio Right to Life is elated that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with life and ruled against the fatal discrimination of babies with Down Syndrome. The eugenic practice of singling out human lives for death because of a Down Syndrome diagnosis has no place in our society. This court ruling brings us one step closer to ensuring that vulnerable babies with special needs are not marked for death because of who they are. Every life is worth living and every precious and unique human being is worthy of complete protection under law.”

Planned Parenthood and NARAL have not been subtle about their view that abortion is justified for any reason, including eugenicist goals of discrimination, and sex or race-selection. Colleen McNichols, an abortionist who works for Planned Parenthood, told the Associated Press in 2019 in response to a similar law passed in Missouri that, “Every reason to have an abortion is a valid reason.”

That view did not fly with Judge Alice Moore Batchelder, who sits on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeal and heard the arguments on the Ohio case last October. In her opinion, Batchelder referred to the 1927 Supreme Court case, Buck vs. Bell, that allowed for forced sterilization of persons in order to prevent their having children and “socially inadequate offspring.” Batchelder wrote, “The eugenicist impulse displayed in Buck, and amplified in its aftermath, is no mere relic of history. Today, many countries celebrate the use of abortion to cleanse their populations of babies whom some would view — ignorantly — as sapping the strength of society.”

According to a CBS report cited by LifeNews, 67% of in utero children diagnosed with Down Syndrome in the U. S. between 1995 – 2011 were aborted. In many European countries, the rates are much higher, some over 90% and some approaching 100%. Pope Francis has consistently condemned the “scourge of abortion” and has on multiple occasions communicated his horror at using abortion against Down Syndrome children or children with other disabilities. His remarks on closing the Year of Mercy in 2016 included the following: “I was thinking about the custom of doing away with babies before they’re born, this horrendous crime. They do away with them because it’s easier like that, because it’s more comfortable. It’s a great responsibility — a very grave sin.” In 2017, Francis took to Twitter, writing, “We are called to defend and safeguard human life, especially in the mother’s womb, in infancy, old age and physical or mental disability.”

Last week, Leslie Rutledge, Attorney General of Arkansas, filed a writ of certiorari in which she asked the United States Supreme Court to reverse the decision of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled against a state law that bans abortions for reasons of diagnoses of Down Syndrome.

New Wyoming Law Forbids Taxpayer Funded Abortions

Gov. Mark Gordon, pro-life Republican governor of Wyoming, signed legislation on Monday that prevents abortions being paid for by taxpayer-supported universities and colleges, including the University of Wyoming and seven community colleges. The law passed the legislation with a strong majority.

In 2018, it came to the attention of the Wyoming state legislature that colleges and universities supported by Wyoming taxpayers were paying for abortions through insurance plans available to students. This legislation was passed to address that, given that a large majority of Americans opposed taxpayer-funded abortions.

Pence Founds New Conservative Organization That Will Support Pro-Life Cause

Former Vice-President Mike Pence has founded a new conservative advocacy group called Advancing American Freedom that will promote conservative values and policies. Those values include stopping taxpayer-funded abortion both domestically and internationally, protection for unborn life, and conscience protections for healthcare workers. The Biden administration has communicated its hostility to such values, both in word and deed. One of Biden’s first actions was to repeal the Mexico City policy that prohibited aid organization from promoting or performing abortions, forcing Americans to pay for international abortions. Biden also supports the so-called Equality Act, a threat to the protection of consciences for healthcare workers who refuse to participate in abortions for religious reasons or reasons of conscience.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List and a member of the advisory board for Advancing American Freedom, said of Pence’s leadership, “This is a larger moment for the pro-life movement. And for him to lead at this moment is particularly important, and it is a watershed because of the complete transformation of the federal judiciary. All those [state-level pro-life] bills will require articulation, they require advocacy, and then the people who are the governors, who are signing those bills, the legislators that are advancing those bills, the people running for Congress later need an advocate that has a high profile, [an] articulate advocate like Mike Pence.”

Let’s hope that pro-life issues do not get put on the back-burner of concerns Advancing American Freedom hopes to address. Too often, Republicans and other conservatives talk a good talk when it comes to pro-life, but fail to act accordingly. Let’s hope, too, that pro-life means more than just abortion. Capital punishment, euthanasia, immigration reform, addressing poverty, urban violence, and economic opportunity for our inner cities are all critical pro-life causes that I would hope and pray Advancing American Freedom will address. We’ll see.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.