NRLC Applauds 4th Circuit Ruling

For immediate release:
Thursday, June 25, 2009

NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE APPLAUDS 4TH CIRCUIT RULING

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) applauded the 6-5 ruling by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the Commonwealth of Virginia’s ban on partial-birth infanticide. The ruling overturns the previous decision of a three-judge panel of the Court and allows the Commonwealth’s statute protecting women and their pre-born children to stand.

In a compelling concurring opinion, Judge Wilkinson recalled the often-ignored interest of the state in protecting human life, writing: “A partially born child is among the weakest, most helpless beings in our midst and on that account exerts a special claim on our protection.”

Today’s decision follows the strong precedent established by the Supreme Court’s decision in Gonzales v. Carhart (2007) upholding the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Notably, President Barack Obama, who has cited a respect for judicial precedent as criteria for his judicial nominees, voiced his strong disagreement with the Gonzales decision while serving as U.S. senator from Illinois, couching his support for partial-birth abortion as a matter of women’s health.

In contrast, Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., NRLC director of State Legislation asserts that “To maintain that puncturing the skull and removing the brain of a child who is in the process of being born is necessary for the health of the mother is a fallacy. We are relieved by the Court’s decision to allow the Commonwealth of Virginia to protect mothers and their children from the egregious procedure of partial-birth abortion.”

The National Right to Life Committee is the nation’s largest pro-life group with affiliates in all 50 states and over 3,000 local chapters nationwide. National Right to Life works through legislation and education to protect those threatened by abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and assisted suicide

From the NRLC 2009 Press Office…

Greetings from Charlotte, North Carolina! Communications Assistant Jessica Rodgers here, in the press room monitoring media comings and goings with fellow assistant Megan McCrum, Director Derrick Jones, and our great intern Tatiana Elowson.

Today kicked off to a great start in the morning with a gathering of the leaders of NRLC and our SC and NC affiliates for a press breakfast. Fr. Tad Pacholczyk, Director of Education at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, opened the convention with a GREAT speech on stem cells and the amazing scientific discoveries surrounding the often misunderstood treatments. Like all pro-lifers, Fr. Tad supports ethical adult stem cell research. Latest numbers show that more than 70 treatments for diseases have been derived  from adult stem cells, while embryonic stem cells have yet to have a single human trial (for more information, visit http://www.stemcellresearch.org/facts/treatments.htm) .

After a break for lunch (during which it was great to catch up with old friends!), the sessions started up with everyone heading off to their respective workshops.

Here in the press office we’ve been checking in camera crews and arranging interviews with Olivia Gans—NRLC Spokesman and Director of American Victims of Abortion and NRLC President Dr. Wanda Franz. There’s been a steady stream of old and new friends coming in to say hi, and the back of the press room has been occupied by members of National Teens for Life Advisory Board, as they prepare for upcoming workshops.

Students from the ’07 and ’08 NRLC Academy classes have come in to volunteer and attend sessions, and it’s been encouraging to see so many young faces again this year attending the National Teens for Life Convention.

I took a break from the press office to go around and take pictures for a while, and was so excited to see all of the workshops so well attended. Lights had gone out in one of the workshop rooms but even sitting in the dark couldn’t dissuade pro-lifers from listening attentively to the speakers.

The first day of the Convention is always a long one, but the energy here is great. Attendee’s are excited to hear Kate Adamson speak tonight, and are getting geared up for the prayer breakfast in the morning.

Day one is off to an excellent start- – we’ll keep you updated!

 Check out more of the action on the convention department’s blog:  www.stoptheabortionagenda.com/convention, complete with this video, which we’re totally re-posting:

More to come!

Opening Press Release: Pro-Lifers Return to Charlotte to Stop Abortion Agenda

For immediate release: 
Thursday, June 18, 2009

PRO-LIFERS GATHER TO STOP THE ABORTION AGENDA
National Right to Life Convention Returns to Charlotte

 CHARLOTTE, NC – Today, North Carolina Right to Life and South Carolina Citizens for Life welcome pro-lifers from coast-to-coast to Charlotte for the 37^th annual National Right to Life Convention. Located at the Blake Hotel, the convention kicks off with a general session featuring Fr. Tad Pacholczyk, director of education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center.  South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster will also welcome attendees at the opening session.

 “We are thrilled to return to the Carolinas for the pro-life educational event of the year,” said Wanda Franz, Ph.D., president of National Right to Life.  “With an aggressive abortion agenda and attacks on life coming from pro-abortion leadership at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, this year’s convention gives every member of the pro-life community the opportunity to network and learn from some of the leading experts in the pro-life movement.”

 Author Kate Adamson will address this evening’s general session.  In her book, Paralyzed but not Powerless, she tells her unique story of overcoming Locked in Syndrome (total paralysis from brain injury due to a brainstem stroke.)   

 Friday afternoon, renowned bioethicist and prolific author Wesley J. Smith will address the issue of assisted suicide.  In 2004, National Journal named Mr. Smith one of the nation’s top expert thinkers in bioengineering.

 In total, the convention will feature more than 70 workshops and five general sessions.  Notre Dame alumnus Fr. James Raphael, SSJ, will address the impact of Notre Dame’s decision to honor President Barack Obama – despite his pro-abortion views and actions – on the African American and pro-life communities at NRLC’s annual prayer breakfast Friday morning.  Pro-life champion Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey will finish off the convention at Saturday night’s closing banquet.

 Most impacted by Roe v. Wade’s destructive legacy of abortion-on-demand are teens and college students who have faced its consequences first-hand.  Running concurrent to NRLC 2009 is the 24^th annual National Teens for Life (NTL) Convention featuring sessions aimed at training pro-life teen leaders from across the country.

 “The goal of the convention is that everyone – young and old – leaves energized and equipped with the tools and information they need to fight back against the abortion agenda and change hearts and minds in their home communities,” Dr. Franz added.

 The National Right to Life Committee is the nation’s largest pro-life group with affiliates in all 50 states and over 3,000 local chapters nationwide. 

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Health Care Reform Webinar

From NRLC’s Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics, a new webinar on health care reform entitled “How America Can Afford Health Care Reform Without Rationing.”  The webinar runs just over an hour.  You can download a copy of the Powerpoint Slides here:  HCWebinarSlides

done

Release: NRLC Responds to Sotomayor Nomination

For immediate release:                                                    
Tuesday, May 26, 2009                                                   

NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE RESPONDS TO
SOTOMAYOR NOMINATION

 WASHINGTON – The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of right-to-life organizations in all 50 states, issued the following statement regarding President Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill the seat on the U.S. Supreme Court that is being vacated by the impending retirement of Justice David Souter.  This statement may be attributed to NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson.

 What we have seen of Judge Sotomayor’s record so far sheds little light on her views regarding how the Constitution bears on the powers of elected lawmakers to protect the right to life of unborn children.

 Members of the Senate should not be pressured to act on this nomination with undue haste.  We believe it is critical that senators thoroughly explore whether Judge Sotomayor believes that Supreme Court justices have the right to override the decisions of elected lawmakers on such issues as partial-birth abortion, tax funding of abortion, and parental notification for abortion. 

 Moreover, in the years ahead debates will intensify on other public policy issues bearing on the right to life –for example, the status of humans who are created by human cloning, or the permissibility of abortion as a method of preventing the birth of a child of an undesired sex.  Does Judge Sotomayor believe that Supreme Court justices have the right to declare that the Constitution empowers them to impose their own opinions on all such matters, or is she willing to allow the decisions of elected lawmakers to stand except where they violate a clear and explicit prohibition in the actual Constitution?

 There are currently four justices on the U.S. Supreme Court who apparently believe that their strong pro-abortion opinions should override the judgments of elected lawmakers, despite the complete lack of support for their position in the text and history of the Constitution.  In its most recent ruling dealing with abortion and the rights of unborn children, Gonzales v. Carhart, on April 18, 2007, a five-justice majority upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.  On that occasion, four justices dissented – including Justice David Souter – and argued for a constitutional doctrine that would have invalidated the ban on partial-birth abortions and also, by implication, condemned virtually any other law or government policy intended to discourage abortion.   If the dissenters’ position became the position of the majority of the Supreme Court, various types of laws that have been deemed permissible under Roe v. Wade could be invalidated by judicial decree, perhaps including the Hyde Amendment (restricting government funding of abortion) and parental notification laws.

 It is, then, very appropriate for senators to press for Judge Sotomayor’s views on the analysis adopted by the dissenters in Gonzales, an analysis that could bar virtually all limitations on abortion.

 Pro-life concerns are reinforced by the knowledge that Judge Sotomayor has been nominated to the Supreme Court by a president who himself criticized the Supreme Court majority for upholding the ban on partial-birth abortion, who previously had opposed a bill to recognize all babies born alive during abortions as fully protected by law, and who endorsed a proposed federal law (the “Freedom of Choice Act”) that has as its major purpose the invalidation of virtually all of the types of abortion regulations that have been upheld by the Supreme Court as consistent with Roe v. Wade.

 The National Right to Life Committee is the nation’s largest pro-life group with affiliates in all 50 states and over 3,000 local chapters nationwide.  National Right to Life works through legislation and education to protect those threatened by abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and assisted suicide.

 # # #

Move Over Bill Clinton

The following op-ed appears in the March 29, 2009 issue of the National Catholic Register.

Move Over, Bill Clinton: A New Abortion President
BY Derrick Jones

March 29-April 4, 2009 Issue | Posted 3/20/09 at 10:23 AM

For unborn children, and the pro-life movement charged with protecting them, nothing could have been worse than the presidency of Bill Clinton. For eight years, he pushed his pro-abortion views on the country.

Beginning two days after his inauguration, on the 20th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Clinton rescinded the Mexico City Policy, thereby allowing tax dollars to go to organizations that perform and promote abortion overseas. He vigorously supported the so-called Freedom of Choice Act and pushed for mandatory abortion coverage in the Clinton Health Care Plan. And, let’s not forget, he’s the president who vetoed – not once, but twice – the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

Bill Clinton was secure in his position as “The Abortion President.” Until now.

In just over a month as president, Barack Obama has already usurped the coveted title from the former president. And, if his radical abortion agenda is successful, Obama will be remembered as the most pro-abortion president since Roe v. Wade.

Unlike Clinton, however, Obama started running for the title before the election. As a member of the Illinois State Senate, he opposed a bill (an astonishing four times) to provide care and protection to babies who survive abortions. When National Right to Life called him on it last summer, he called us liars.

Then, there’s that infamous speech before the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in 2007, when he pledged his support for the Freedom of Choice Act, which, like a bad penny, had come back yet again.

Since taking up office in the West Wing, Barack Obama has stepped up his efforts to ensure he will be remembered as “The Abortion President.” Following Clinton’s lead, Obama once again rescinded the Mexico City Policy (which had been in place for eight years thanks to President George W. Bush’s swift action in his first days in office). Taxpayer funds are now once again flowing into the coffers of international abortion-performing organizations.

Next, Obama set his sights on a regulation announced by the Department of Health and Human Services during the final weeks of the Bush presidency that enforces federal laws protecting the conscience rights of doctors and health-care providers. This regulation was designed to raise awareness in the medical community and general public, as well as increase compliance with federal laws protecting doctors and health-care providers from discrimination in federally funded health-care programs.

Health-care providers are increasingly being pressured to violate their moral convictions with regards to abortion. The conscience-protection regulations are based on underlying federal conscience-protection laws that Congress has enacted, including the 1973 Church Amendments, the 1996 Public Health Service Act amendment, and the Hyde-Weldon Conscience Protection Amendment, which was first added to a funding bill in 2004.

So great is his contempt for pro-lifers, and so great is his desire to advance his pro-abortion agenda, that Obama intends to rescind this regulation. And, although rescinding this federal regulation does not repeal the underlying federal laws, pro-abortion advocacy groups have targeted the Hyde-Weldon law for repeal. 

In addition to wielding his pen to rescind pro-life regulations, Obama, tragically, but not surprisingly, has appointed a veritable “Who’s Who” of the Abortion Industry to positions within his administration.

While the list could go on and on, some highlights of Obama’s appointees include: Dawn Johnsen, a former legal director for NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) Pro-Choice America, who was named as assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel; Ellen Moran, who was taken from her position as executive director of the pro-abortion political committee Emily’s List and appointed to the message-shaping post of White House communications director; Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, who compiled a 100% pro-abortion voting record during his tenure in the House of Representatives; and Melody Black, who previously served on the boards of both Emily’s List and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, was appointed domestic policy advisor, a high-ranking West Wing post with the ear of the president.

Most recently, Obama tapped Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a pro-abortion extremist, to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Sebelius, of course, was his second choice after Tom Daschle, the pro-abortion former senator from South Dakota, withdrew his name from nomination. What makes Sebelius’ nomination all the more tragic are her ties to the rather infamous Kansas abortionist George Tiller.

All too often, pro-abortionists use words like “intolerant” and “closed-minded” to describe pro-lifers and our respect for the dignity and sanctity of human life. But, in reality, it is pro-lifers who seek to engage the public in a thoughtful, compassionate and respectful discussion about the humanity of unborn children and the effects of abortion on their mothers.

It is so profoundly ironic that a president who campaigned on a message of tolerance for all Americans of all political stripes and social views has decided that, rather than using his position to engage in a thoughtful debate that advances policies to help mothers facing crisis pregnancies and save unborn children, he has demonstrated, through his words and actions, that he will wield his power like a sledgehammer to advance the pro-abortion cause.

Derrick Jones is the communications director
for the National Right to Life Committee,
the nation’s largest pro-life organization.

Now Posted: The Obama Record on Life

The Obama Record on Life is now available from the National Right to Life website. To access the PDF file (as well as the PDF files for the records of Presidents Regan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush), see the POTUS records page at nrlc.org.

These are a great  tool you can use in your communities to educate friends and family about the life and death actions taken by the presidents during their time in the Oval Office.  Please feel free to download, copy and distribute these materials freely.

NRLC to Notre Dame: Rescind Obama Invitation

For immediate release:
Monday, March 23, 2009 

NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE CALLS ON NOTRE DAME
TO RESCIND OBAMA INVITATION

 WASHINGTON – Today the National Right to Life Committee, the nation’s largest pro-life organization, called upon University of Notre Dame president Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., to rescind the University’s invitation to Barack Obama to speak at Notre Dame’s commencement May 17.

 “Notre Dame’s invitation to the most pro-abortion president in U.S. history is a betrayal of the University’s mission and an affront to all who believe in the sanctity and dignity of human life,” said Anthony J. Lauinger, National Right to Life Vice-President (and father of seven Notre Dame alumni and one current student.)  “We call upon Father Jenkins to rescind the invitation and stand up for the millions of unborn children who face death under Obama Administration policies.”

 In a letter to Father Jenkins, Mr. Lauinger pointed out that, through words and actions, Barack Obama has launched a comprehensive anti-life agenda that targets decades of life-saving policies while treating the views of pro-life Americans with complete contempt.  The full text of Mr. Lauinger’s letter is printed below.

 “As a Notre Dame parent and supporter, I am outraged by this invitation to Barack Obama.  I have apologized to my eight children for the poor guidance I provided them when I encouraged them to enroll at Notre Dame,” Lauinger said.

 The National Right to Life Committee is the nation’s largest pro-life group with affiliates in all 50 states and over 3,000 local chapters nationwide.  National Right to Life works through legislation and education to protect those threatened by abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and assisted suicide.

 HERE IS THE TEXT OF MR. LAUINGER’S LETTER TO FATHER JENKINS: 

Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
President
University of Notre Dame

Dear Father Jenkins,

            In your January 27 letter to my wife Phyllis and me, you thanked us for support “for our (Notre Dame’s) most essential, and mission-bound, priorities.”  In the wake of the commencement announcement regarding Barack Obama, I am compelled to ask whether Notre Dame recognizes what those priorities are.

            Disillusionment, incredulity, betrayal – all describe my feelings.  I am left questioning my own judgment in having encouraged our eight children to go to Notre Dame.

            Abortion is the unspeakable evil that causes my outrage – abortion and the fact that Barack Obama is the Abortion President.  His first two months in office have constituted an all-out assault on the unborn child.

            Not content with legal abortion-on-demand in this country, he seeks to foist the same policy on the rest of the world by rescinding the Mexico City Policy, which previously kept U.S. tax dollars from funding groups working to subvert the pro-life laws of countries overseas; and he seeks to export abortion around the world through his policies and appointments at the United Nations, including providing U.S. funding to the United Nations Population Fund, actively involved in China’s coerced-abortion program.

            Not content with Roe v. Wade, he champions the “Freedom of Choice Act,” which would nullify some five hundred state and federal laws which impose modest, limited regulations on the unfettered right to abortion.  Signing the “Freedom of Choice Act” would be “the first thing I’d do as president,” he promised the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.  See his promise in this short video clip: http://americaschoicenow.com/

            Not content with having pro-abortion doctors perform abortions, President Obama has announced he will rescind the Conscience Rule which protects the rights of pro-life doctors and nurses to refuse to participate in abortions or other killing procedures on religious or moral grounds.  Cardinal Francis George, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, is urging Catholics to tell the Obama Administration to retain conscience protections for health-care workers.

            Two weeks ago, the President signed an executive order reversing a ban on federal funding of embryo-destructive stem cell research.  The policy that had been in effect the past eight years protected American taxpayers from being complicit in the killing of embryonic human beings for purposes of harvesting their stem cells.  Embryo-killing stem-cell research, the act of destroying living members of our species, homo sapiens, in order to provide raw material for experimentation, has never benefited a single human patient, whereas adult stem cells have benefited patients suffering from more than 70 different disorders.   

           On the same day he authorized federal funding of embryo-killing research, the President rescinded a policy that had been providing federal funding for alternative methods of obtaining pluripotent stem cells through “cell reprogramming,” in which ordinary human skin and other cells are transformed into “induced pluripotent stem cells.”  This breakthrough, which does not require destroying human embryos, was deemed so important that the journal Science named it the scientific breakthrough of the year for 2008.  

         The President’s appointments to key White House and cabinet positions have had extreme pro-abortion records: Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, former congressman with a 100% pro-abortion record; Domestic Policy Adviser Melody Barnes, previous board member of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund; Communications Director Ellen Moran, former executive director of the pro-abortion group EMILY’s List; Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the radically pro-abortion former governor of Kansas: Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg;  Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel Dawn Johnsen, the former legal director of the National Abortion Rights Action League…  These are but a small handful of examples.

            One of the many problems caused by Notre Dame’s decision to honor the man doing more to destroy unborn children than anyone else on the face of the earth is the scandal to which it gives rise: to our own students; to Catholics across the country and beyond; to those of us who thought Notre Dame stood for something special; to everyone who believed Our Lady’s University aspired to values higher than the approval of a debased secular culture.

              Father, I have attached, above, a joint statement on Faithful Citizenship by Bishop Kevin Vann and Bishop Kevin Farrell, the bishops of Fort Worth and Dallas, respectively.  Their letter puts the worth and dignity of human life in proper perspective.

             Finally, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ document, “Catholics in Political Life,” offers this exhortation: “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”  I would submit that what is planned for May 17 is a classic example of precisely the type of scandal the bishops direct us to avoid.      

            I apologized today to my eight children for the poor guidance I provided them when I encouraged them to enroll at Our Lady’s University, and for having misled them, and myself, about what I believed to be the core values of Notre Dame.

Sincerely,
Anthony J. Lauinger
Tulsa, Oklahoma

Click here to view the attachment: “A joint statement on Faithful Citizenship” by Bishop Kevin Vann and Bishop Kevin Farrell (PDF Format)

Release: Idaho Bill Would Throw Patient’s Rights Out the Window

For immediate release:
Monday, March 23, 2009                                                              

IDAHO SENATE BILL 1114
THROWS PATIENT RIGHTS OUT THE WINDOW

 Idaho Senate Bill 1114, which has passed the Idaho state Senate, is currently awaiting hearing before the Idaho House Health and Welfare Committee. If passed, the bill would authorize health care providers to deny life-sustaining procedures, including food and fluids through feeding tubes or IV, against the will of patients and their family members.

The bill establishes a procedure by which healthcare providers can override patient and family decisions to choose lifesaving treatment and care, including patient’s wishes in their written advance directive. The bill’s dangerously vague language means that health care providers would be able to deny treatment to patients they think have a poor “quality of life,” as arbitrarily determined by a hospital ethics committee.                                                                                       

“In short, the bill dangerously overrides patient and family rights,” said Burke Balch J.D., Director of NRLC’s Powell Center for Medical Ethics.  “It takes choices away from the patient and family, instead placing life or death decisions in the hands of a hospital ethics committee or the health care provider acting even without an ethics committee. In effect, the passage of SB1114 would mean the deaths of those patients the health care providers deem unworthy to live.”

 Spokespersons, including independent experts, are available for interviews on this legislation. To arrange an interview, please contact the National Right to Life Committee Communications Department at 202-626-8825 or mediarelations@nrlc.org

 The National Right to Life Committee is the nation=s largest pro-life group with affiliates in all 50 states and over 3,000 local chapters nationwide.  National Right to Life works through legislation and education to protect those threatened by abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and assisted suicide.

 # # #

Study: Abortion causes future premature births

OneNewsNow is up with a story about a study that appeared in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine showing an increase in future premature births among women who have previously had an abortion.  The report quotes NRLC President Dr. Wanda Franz:

Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), says it makes sense. “And of course there’s a logical connection that if you have an abortion where you’re artificially intervening in a pregnancy so that you can potentially damage the system of the mother, that you might create conditions under which preterm delivery would be more likely,” she contends.