When the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) was first considering authorizing the sale of the chemical abortifacient mifepristone (also known as RU-486), reporters used to ask me all the time how I thought this would “change the abortion debate.” I tended to respond that it didn’t change a thing, as the aim and the issue was just the same – the deliberate destruction of an innocent human life, just by a new and novel means.

I still feel that way. Nothing in the FDA’s latest decision to authorize health care personnel to prescribe abortion pills remotely and ship them directly to women’s homes changes what abortion is or what it does. But moving abortion out of the clinic and into the home is a very strategic move by the abortion industry and that has the potential to put a lot more lives at risk.

Today we begin a three-part series examining how home abortions—“DIY” abortions– do and do not change abortion.

It makes things easier and more convenient – for the abortionists.

We’re told that letting women have these pills mailed to their homes after a short online interview is supposed to make the abortion easier and more natural for women. While it could (if they happen to be  some of the fortunate ones) help a few avoid the expense and hassle of a drive to the clinic, in many ways, the at-home chemical abortion is going to be a lot more difficult than a surgical abortion done at the clinic.

With a surgical abortion, so long as there are not unforeseen complications, the baby’s life is taken in a matter of minutes. Recovery will take some time for the woman, but she can be in and out of the clinic in a couple of hours.

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Not so with chemical abortion. In addition to the time involved in screening and watching the mail box for the arrival of the pills, women have to wait a day or so after taking the mifepristone for that drug to begin working. (Mifepristone shuts down the baby’s life support system.) Then she has to take a second drug, misoprostol, a prostaglandin that stimulates powerful contractions to force the baby out. The whole process is bloody, painful and may take hours, or even days to complete – if it works. For many– the FDA says 2-7% – it doesn’t.

This is hardly what anyone would call an “easy” abortion.

And if a woman is at home, going through all this all alone, it can be quite terrifying. How much bleeding is too much? Are these gut-wrenching cramps normal? How do I know that I’m done?

Unlike the surgical abortion in the clinic, she may encounter her aborted baby face-to-face.  Will she flush the child down the toilet like you would a goldfish? Bury the baby in backyard with a ritual the way one would a family pet?

None of this is quick, none of this is easy.

Who it’s easy for is the abortionist and the clinic.  All the abortionist has to do is sign a few forms, order some pills, and spend a few minutes chatting online with his or her would-be client. He or she asks a few pertinent medical questions before getting the woman’s address, taking her credit card info, and sending her the pills. No scheduling a clinic visit, no women lined up in the waiting room, no clinical exam, no ultrasound, no follow up visit or exam to confirm completion of the abortion.

At most, a few lower level clinic employees might be called upon to staff a hotline for those women calling in with problems. But most clinics can (and likely will) punt and simply refer women with serious issues to their nearest emergency room.

Easy, convenient – for the abortionist.  Not so much for the women, scrambling to find someone to stop the pain and the bleeding or to hold her hand when the baby passes.

LifeNews.com Note: Randall O’Bannon, Ph.D., is the director of education and research for the National Right to Life Committee. This column originally appeared at NRL News Today.

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A young mum with cancer who considered ending her life at a Dignitas clinic has shared her inspiring story after receiving specialist treatment.

Estelle Wignall, 27, from Wigan was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2017 after experiencing symptoms for years.

Estelle said: “People said I was being a hypochondriac. Nobody took me seriously – but I just knew. It was an instinct”.

She was only 22 and, after she was finally diagnosed, doctors removed a tumour as well as her right ovary and Fallopian tube.

Estelle thought the whole thing was behind her. She got married in 2019 and the couple had their first child in 2020.

“I had only one ovary and so to conceive so quickly felt like a miracle”, Estelle recalls.

“I didn’t have my regular checks because I was pregnant, and during the birth, the midwife actually noticed nodules on my cervix and I was referred for more tests, which came back clear”.

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“I was actually planning a hysterectomy so that there was no chance the cancer could return”.

“The first time I had cancer, I coped well”.

However, before she was able to have a hysterectomy, she began to feel sick once more. She initially attributed this to an intense diet she had started “to get rid of my baby weight”.

“But I started to feel very tired and I had no appetite. I thought it was all due to the diet – but it got worse and I began to think the cancer might be back”.

Later that year, Estelle was devastated to learn the cancer was back and it had spread to her liver and lungs. She was told that she only had two to three years to live.

“The first time I had cancer, I coped well. But this time, because of Brooke, I was heartbroken. She was just six months old and it felt so cruel”.

At her lowest points, Estelle even considered booking herself into the assisted suicide centre, Dignitas, in Switzerland.

‘Natural therapies’ helped to change her mind

After both chemotherapy and surgery though, Estelle says her perspective has changed.

She found holistic therapies and alternative treatments have been able to make her feel better.

“I hit very low points… but my treatment has gone so well that I am now looking at helping other women, offering them the natural therapies that I believe have helped me to stay alive”.

Estelle has since launched her own business and hopes to continue to inspire and support other women in a similar position to her.

“I am living proof that you should never, ever give up”.

Right To Life UK spokesperson, Catherine Robinson, said: “Estelle’s inspiring story shows that the wish to die is often transient and is motivated by fear and sadness. Evidence shows that the primary concerns for people to want to end their lives by an assisted suicide are emotional and psychological and not physical. For example, a recent Irish study showed that almost three quarters of people over 50 who had previously expressed a wish to die no longer had that desire two years later. It also found that their wish to die was associated with high levels of loneliness”.

“Similarly in Oregon, which legalised assisted suicide in 1997, 94.3% of people who ended their lives in this way were concerned with being “Less able to engage in activities making life enjoyable”.

“Estelle’s story and these data show that people need support and therapy to assist them to live, not to die”.

LifeNews Note: Republished with permission from Right to Life UK.

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California pro-life advocates won a victory in federal court recently when a judge agreed to block a state law that restricts free speech outside abortion facilities.

In late December, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California agreed with pro-life advocates’ request to temporarily block the law while their lawsuit moves forward, CBN News reports.

Life Legal Defense Foundation, which is representing the pro-life advocates, said the law violates the First Amendment freedom of speech.

California Senate Bill 742, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law in October, bans certain free-speech activities outside abortion facilities and vaccination sites. It creates a 30-foot buffer zone between peaceful pro-life advocates and abortion facility patients.

Pro-lifers who violate the law could be punished with up to six months in jail or $1,000 fines, according to CBN.

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Judge Nathanael Cousins said he believes the pro-life advocates likely will win their case.

“This language raises a very real risk that speech will necessarily be chilled in the course of enforcement of this law, even in the absence of the overbroad harassment section,” Cousins wrote in his ruling. “It is not at all clear how a given law enforcement official is supposed to determine, possibly from a significant distance, whether someone is approaching with the lawful purposes of educating or leafleting, as opposed to the unlawful purpose of intimidating or interfering.”

Katie Short, an attorney with Life Legal Defense Foundation, celebrated the judge’s ruling and expressed hope for a final victory soon.

“Life Legal is pleased that the court has carefully considered our arguments and has determined that we are likely to succeed in our lawsuit challenging this unprecedented suppression of speech on public sidewalks,” Short said. “We are confident that California’s assault on the First Amendment will be permanently struck down.”

Alliance Defending Freedom and the Right to Life Central California in Fresno also filed a separate lawsuit against the law in October, saying it unconstitutionally restricts speech based on viewpoint and content.

Another federal judge blocked parts of the law in October in response to their lawsuit.

“The court rightly acknowledged SB 742’s double standard in restricting pro-life outreach while permitting other types of speech, such as picketing about a labor dispute,” ADF senior counsel Denise Harle said at the time. “We are thankful Right to Life’s staff and volunteers can continue their critical mission of serving vulnerable women in the central California region with their free, life-giving services.”

California Family Council director of capitol Greg Burt told CBN News that state lawmakers ignored their warnings about the unconstitutional law when they passed it last year. Pro-abortion Democrats control the California legislature by a strong majority.

“We warned legislators the bill violated the First Amendment, but they didn’t seem to care,” Burt said. “So crushing are these legal defeats, I doubt the California Attorney General’s Office will try and defend this law any longer.”

Pro-life advocates’ peaceful witness outside abortion facilities does make a difference. Former abortion workers admit that when pro-life sidewalk counselors are outside, the no-show rate for abortion appointments goes up. Sidewalk counselors often are the last line of hope for unborn babies. They offer hope and encouragement to mothers who think abortion is their only option, as well as information about their unborn baby’s development and resources to help pregnant and parenting families.

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Abortion facilities in Ohio in the United States are opposing a new law requiring them to cremate or provide burial for aborted babies. Five abortion facilities in total have said that the requirement is too “burdensome and expensive to comply with”.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit in opposition to Ohio’s new requirement for the disposal of aborted babies.

Freda Levenson, a spokesperson for ACLU, claims that “the law and the implementing rules are extremely burdensome and expensive to comply with – impossible in many regards”.

The pro-abortion organisation has also claimed that the law will mean women will have to wait until later in their pregnancies to have an abortion.

The ACLU has also that stated that “it’s very, very costly to provide cremation or burial for a small collection of cells. This law applies even to a blastocyte or to a small number of cells or to an embryo.”

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Last April, the enforcement of the new law was temporarily blocked, pending the finalisation of rules by Ohio’s Department of Health. These rules were released on 30 December 2021.

A SPUC spokesperson said: “The refusal to provide the unborn with cremation or burial comes as no surprise, since the abortion industry denies the humanity of unborn babies – dishonestly preferring to call them ‘cells’.

“Of course, how we treat human beings in death reflects how we treat them in life.

“Aborted children are not medical waste. The willful blindness of the abortion industry goes hand in hand with the anti-life view that results in millions of babies being killed every year.

“While the new Ohio law does not prevent the killing of the unborn, it does further underline the callousness of an industry founded on death and the exploitation of vulnerable mothers.”

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More than 180 U.S. House lawmakers said Thursday that they remain strongly opposed to any legislation that forces taxpayers to pay for the killing of unborn babies in abortions.

In a letter first reported about at Breitbart, the 181 lawmakers promised to stand with the American people on the issue as pro-abortion Democrats attempt to get rid of popular, long-standing bans on taxpayer funding for elective abortions in the United States and overseas.

“Taxpayers should not be forced to pay for abortion domestically or internationally,” the lawmakers wrote. “The consciences of health care providers who do not want to participate in abortion should be respected. Funding should not go to international organizations that are complicit in forced abortion and involuntary sterilization.”

The letter, addressed to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, thanked the two for their “unwavering commitment” to the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer funding for abortions in Medicaid.

Since 1976, the amendment has saved an estimated 2.4 million babies’ lives, including about 60,000 each year, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

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For decades, most Republican and Democrat lawmakers supported the Hyde Amendment and other bans on taxpayer funding for abortions as a regular part of the budget. However, Democrats recently abandoned the public on the issue and sided with the billion-dollar abortion industry in calling for taxpayer-funded abortions.

In their letter Thursday, the lawmakers criticized House Democrat leaders for trying to get rid of these bans and force taxpayers to fund abortions in the U.S. and overseas.

“In July 2021, House Democrats passed several appropriations bills that did not include the Hyde Amendment or other longstanding, bipartisan pro-life protections and, instead, added pro-abortion provisions,” they wrote. “Many of these protections would also be eliminated by the nine appropriations bills released by the Senate Appropriations Committee on October 18, 2021. The removal of these longstanding policies represents an extreme pro-abortion stance that needs to be immediately addressed.”

Polls consistently show strong public opposition to taxpayer-funded abortions. A 2021 Marist poll found 58 percent of Americans oppose using tax dollars to fund abortions in the U.S., and 77 percent oppose using tax dollars to fund abortions in other countries. A 2016 Harvard/Politico poll also found strong public opposition to taxpayer-funded abortions, especially among lower-income Americans, the people most likely to qualify for a Medicaid-covered, taxpayer-funded abortion.

U.S. Rep. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican who helped write the letter, said Democrat leaders’ attempts to get rid of the Hyde Amendment are “both wrong and unpopular,” according to Breitbart.

“But today’s Democrat party only caters to their far-left base who demand the government provide taxpayer-funded abortions up until the point of birth,” Banks said. “Pro-life conservatives stand united against their radical agenda.”

Congressional Pro-Life Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, also criticized abortion activists for attempting to portray the killing of an unborn child as “health care.”

“Abortion is not health care unless one construes the precious life of an unborn child to be analogous to a tumor to be excised or a disease to be vanquished—pregnancy is not a disease,” Smith said. “Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize abortion nor should anyone or any entity be coerced against their conscience to perform or facilitate the killing of an unborn child.”

The Hyde Amendment has saved about 2.4 million babies from abortions, according to research by Charlotte Lozier Institute associate scholar Dr. Michael New. Prior to the amendment, in the 1970s, Americans paid for about 300,000 unborn babies’ abortion deaths each year, according to a report from the Family Research Council.

The post 180 Members of Congress Fight to Stop Taxpayer-Funded Abortions appeared first on LifeNews.com.

The Satanic Temple, a radical religious group that calls the killing of unborn babies in abortions a spiritual “ritual,” is trying to indoctrinate young children now.

The Belleville News-Democrat reports parents at an Illinois school district recently voiced outrage after learning that the Satanic Temple is starting a club for elementary students this month at Jane Addams Elementary School in Moline.

A flyer posted online welcomes children in first through fifth grades to the “After School Satan Club” for fun and games, arts and crafts, and nature activities.

The Satanic Temple says the club will teach children about “critical thinking, benevolence, empathy, problem solving, creative expression and personal sovereignty.” It claims its club will not attempt to convert children, and its goal is to encourage children to think for themselves.

“This actually isn’t a club that’s meant to proselytize Satanism or even engage in discussions about religious opinion,” Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves told WQAD. “This is an educational program meant to focus on critical thinking and just basic education skills.”

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Despite parents’ outrage, school leaders said they cannot do anything to stop the club because of U.S. Supreme Court rulings about religious freedom in public schools.

“To illegally deny their organization to pay to rent our publicly-funded institution, after school hours, subjects the district to a discrimination lawsuit, which we will not win, likely taking thousands upon thousands of taxpayer dollars away from our teachers, staff and classrooms,” said Dr. Rachel Savage, the superintendent for Moline-Coal Valley Schools, in a statement this week.

Savage said the school itself and its teachers are not involved in the club.

Parents also must give their permission for students to attend, according to the flyer.

The Satanic Temple is deeply involved in abortion advocacy, and pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood have been going into schools for years to indoctrinate children with its pro-abortion agenda. Former abortion workers have warned that the abortion industry uses sex education programs to encourage risky sexual behavior and sell abortions.

Breitbart once described the work of the Satanic Temple as a “pro-abortion crusade to come to the aid of America’s largest abortion provider,” Planned Parenthood.

The religious group has filed multiple lawsuits in different states to overturn pro-life laws, though its attempts thus far have failed. Most recently, it filed a lawsuit challenging a Texas informed consent law that requires abortion facilities to provide basic information about abortion risks, an unborn baby’s development and alternatives to abortion to mothers prior to the abortion.

The Satanic Temple claims that an abortion is a “religious right” as well as a “ritual,” likening it to communion or baptism for Christians. In 2020, it even raffled off an abortion to raise money for its lawsuits.

Some of its members also attempt to intimidate peaceful pro-life sidewalk counselors through gruesome protests. In 2016, pro-life advocates outside of a Detroit, Michigan Planned Parenthood faced a disturbing scene when a group from the Satanic Temple arrived to counter-protest wearing baby masks and carrying whips. They held a similar protest on Good Friday in 2017.

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The U.S. Catholic bishops are encouraging Americans to dedicate nine days this January to praying for the end to Roe v. Wade and the killing of unborn babies in abortions.

The “9 Days for Life” novena, which begins Jan. 19, coincides with the 49^th anniversary of the infamous U.S. Supreme Court ruling and the national March for Life in Washington, D.C., according to Breitbart.

A project of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Office of Pro-Life Activities, the prayer campaign asks God to end “the tragic practice of abortion,” which “rejects the truth that every life is a good and perfect gift, deserving protection.”

Since 1973, more than 63 million unborn babies have been aborted in America, including about 1 million annually. Because of Roe and later Planned Parenthood v. Casey, states are forced to legalize abortions for any reason up to viability.

Last year, however, pro-life advocates’ hope grew stronger after the high court heard a major abortion case out of Mississippi that directly challenges Roe. A ruling on the case is expected in June.

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In the bishops’ call to prayer this month, they lamented how the Supreme Court has allowed the killing of unborn babies in abortions to go on for so long.

“Our laws should — first and foremost — protect life,” they wrote. “But our highest Court does not recognize children in their mothers’ wombs as persons and claims that abortion is a constitutional right.”

They pointed out how deeply abortion has harmed society – not just unborn babies, but also mothers and fathers, grandparents and siblings.

“This violent practice ends the life of a human being at its very beginning and horribly wounds all those involved,” they said. “Countless children’s lives have been ended by abortion, and countless parents and family members suffer guilt, grief and regret—often in silence.”

In materials for the prayer campaign, the bishops said sin has blinded many people to the value of human life.

“When we, like Cain, allow sin to find a place in our hearts, we become blinded to the truth,” they said. “Sometimes this blindness might be so deep that we fail to recognize the undeniable humanity of unborn children. We may even tragically believe the lie that abortion is an act of compassion.”

Yet, God also can forgive the greatest of sins, including the killing of an unborn child, the bishops said.

More information about “9 Days for Life,” including daily prayers and suggested activities to build a culture of life, may be found here.

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Steven Bozza, bioethicist and the director of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Office for Life and Family, has emphasised the importance of being pro-life at all stages of life in the lead-up to the 49th annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., later this month.

“What you say at the beginning of life, you say at the end of life”, he said. “The question is, ‘How are we being pro-life with all of the stages of life?”

The answer, he said, should include a combination of public witness, legal change, social outreach, scientific progress and education, inspired by faith and prayer.

Steven Bozza also blamed the ubiquity of abortion for many of modern society’s problems.

He said: “Think of the social problems we see in the news every day – violence, people killing each other. It boils down to a disrespect for human life. You’re not respecting human life in the womb. What makes you think you’ll respect it on the street?”

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Father Christopher Walsh, of St. Raymond of Peñafort Parish in Philadelphia, urged pro-lifers to show compassion towards people who believe abortion is permissible, and to “share the truth… little by little, with patience but also with conviction”.

Bozza also cited Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical, warning that artificial contraception and abortion would reduce women to “a mere instrument for the satisfaction of [a man’s] desires”.

A SPUC spokesperson said: “The pro-life movement consists of passionate individuals working hard for legislative and cultural change.

“As bioethicist Steven Bozza says, if individuals combine faith with action, we have a very real shot at influencing hearts and minds on this vital issue, ultimately reaching the point where abortion is unthinkable to most people.”

LifeNews Note: Courtesy of SPUC. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children is a leading pro-life organization in the United Kingdom.

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A west Virginia state House committee has passed a bill that would save babies from abortion by banning all abortions after 15 weeks. The bill is modeled on legislation from Mississippi that received a hearing before the Supreme Court in December and that pro-life advocates expect will be upheld.

The Committee on Health and Human Resources Thursday voted down a number of attempts by pro-abortion members of the panel to water down the legislation.

Here’s more:

Before the final vote, committee vice-chairman Del. Dean Jeffries, R-Kanawha, said he was very comfortable and honored to vote for the bill. He talked about becoming a grandfather and witnessing the baby’s beating heart and seeing images of the organs.

“I’m very comfortable making this vote today,” Jeffries said. “I am very honored to deliver a promise to my constituents. As a soon-to-be grandfather of twin boys, I can tell you at 15 weeks I witnessed a beating heart, functioning vital organs, an ability to make gestures and even suck a thumb. I saw formed lips, eyelids, and a nose. At that point, I knew this legislation is just and it is right.”

The bill still needs to go through the House’s Judiciary Committee before it goes to the full House.

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The committee also passed a bill that bans the sale, transfer and transportation of fetal body parts within the state.

The House Health and Human Resources Committee will hold a public hearing on the bills 3 p.m. Monday.

One legislator talked about how seeing an ultrasound of an unborn baby reminder her of the value of human life.

“I actually have a sister-in-law who is pregnant with my first niece. Her name is Macy, and just last week I was able to see a video of an ultrasound that she just recently had at 16 weeks and two days, and it was so incredibly beautiful because we got to see and hear her heart beating almost rhythmically, and so for me when I looked at that ultra sound picture, I felt this deep love and passion for her, but I also felt a little bit of pain because in West Virginia, she could be killed at this moment in pregnancy, and I’m not okay with that,” said Republican Del. Kayla Kessinger Fayette.

West Virginia voters approved an addition to the state Constitution in 2018, stating that “Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of abortion.”

West Virginia is one of 20 states with “trigger bans” that would go into effect should the Supreme Court reverse itself on Roe v. Wade.

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Police in India made a shocking discovery Wednesday when they uncovered the bones from what appear to be dozens of aborted babies at a private hospital in central India.

The Deccan Chronicle reports police found at least 11 skulls and 54 bones from very young babies at a biogas plant on the Kadam Hospital land in Arvi, Wardha.

Wardha police inspector Jyotsna Giri said they found the bones while investigating another case, an alleged illegal abortion on a 13-year-old girl, at the hospital. Giri said a tip prompted them to search the biogas plant, a composting device used to create energy, on the hospital land, and that is where they found the bones.

News 18 reports police also found stained clothing, bags, shovels and other evidence in the biogas plant, and they sent everything to a lab for further investigation. Wardha Superintendent of Police Prashant Holkar said they are trying to determine if the bones were disposed of legally or illegally, according to India.com.

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Police said they also arrested Dr. Rekha Kadam and a nurse for allegedly performing an illegal abortion on a 13-year-old girl.

The girl and her family said she was forced into the abortion by the parents of her baby’s father, also a minor, according to News 18. Police said they arrested the boy’s parents for allegedly forcing the girl to abort her unborn baby and making threats against her parents.

Responding to the findings, Dr. Ganesh Rakh, a renowned gynecologist and advocate for women in India, said he believes the hospital may have been running an illegal sex-selection abortion operation.

“What has accidentally stumbled out through the illegal abortion on a minor girl may actually have larger consequences,” Rakh told the news outlet. “The male-female ratio in the country is falling at an alarming rate, and this will be known in the near future.”

A local doctor who spoke to the news outlet on condition of anonymity said there have been rumors about “shady goings-on” at the hospital for years, including talk about sex-selection abortions and female infanticide.

Abortions are legal up to 20 weeks in India and later in certain circumstances. The law prohibits sex-selection abortions, but they remain a huge problem.

Because of a cultural preference for male children, experts estimate that approximately 46 million girls have been singled out for abortions specifically because they were girls in the past 50 years, the New York Post reported late last year.

The post Officials Find 11 Skulls and 54 Bones From Dozens of Aborted Babies Next to Hospital appeared first on LifeNews.com.

During an unusually tough exclusive interview with Vice President Kamala Harris aired on NBC’s Today show Thursday morning, co-host Craig Melvin actually asked the VP if she would be dropped from the Democratic Party ticket in 2024. A visibly upset Harris bristled that she didn’t want to respond to “the punditry and the gossip.”

“Are we going to see the same Democratic ticket in 2024?,” Melvin vaguely wondered. After a long pause, Harris whined: “I’m sorry, we are thinking about today. I mean, honestly, I know why you’re asking the question because this is part of the punditry and the gossip around places like Washington, D.C.” She continued: “We’re focused on what we need to do to address issues like affordable child care, what we need to do to ensure that – ”

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Melvin cut her off: “So there’ll be no conversations about 2024?” Harris insisted: “The American people sent us here to do a job. And right now there’s a lot of work to be done, and that’s my focus. Sincerely.”

The anchor then promoted wild speculation that Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney could be Biden’s new running mate: “It sounds like you’re at least familiar with some of the punditry. I don’t know if you’ve heard that there’s been some talk about a Biden-Cheney ticket, perhaps, in 2024. Did you read that article?”

Harris huffed: “I did not. No, I did not. And I really could care less about the high-class gossip on these issues.”

Moments before asking about 2024, Melvin pressed the VP on the President’s incendiary and divisive rhetoric during a Tuesday speech in Georgia to sell doomed legislation that would implement a federal takeover of elections:

Let’s turn to voting rights here for a moment. You were there in Atlanta with the President when he compared those who oppose Democratic-backed voting bills that are currently in the Senate – he compared the folks who oppose those to folks who opposed civil rights. Senator Romney, in response yesterday, he took to the floor of the Senate and he said, quote, “So much for unifying the country.”

When the President was on the campaign trail in the fall of 2020, he said something. He said, “With trump out of the way, the vindictiveness of a president going after Republicans who don’t do exactly what he says gets taken away.” Isn’t that exactly what President Biden did in Atlanta on Wednesday?

Harris doubled down on Biden comparing Republicans, and even some Democrats, to segregationists like George Wallace and Bull Connor: “President Biden took the, I believe, right and courageous step to say that Senate rules should not get in the way of protecting the American people’s access to the ballot, and he compared this time to a previous time in our history which is apt for comparison.”

Earlier in the discussion, Melvin also hammered on the administration’s mishandling of COVID:

As we sit here, this week we saw a record number of hospitalizations, adults and children. We’ve seen the infection record broken. I think a lot of people are scratching their heads and they’re wondering one year into this administration, why aren’t we doing better in the fight against COVID?…At what point does the administration say, you know what, this strategy isn’t working? We’re gonna change strategies? Six former administration officials last week wrote that open letter urging the administration to change course, to change strategy. Is it time?

Even as networks like NBC ignore Biden’s approval rating falling to a new low, Melvin’s challenging exchange with Harris shows that the liberal media know how bad things are for the White House.

The interview was brought to viewers by Planet Fitness and Citi.

LifeNews.com Note: Kyle Drennen is an MRC News Analyst and a graduate of Providence College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Political Science. This was originally posted on the Media Research Center blog NewsBusters.

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood on Thursday to recover more than $10 million in taxpayer funds that the abortion chain received after the state defunded it in 2016.

Planned Parenthood affiliates in Texas continued to collect money from the Texas Medicaid program from 2016 to 2021 while it challenged the defunding action in court, according to the lawsuit. However, the abortion chain ultimately lost its case.

Now, Paxton said the law requires Planned Parenthood to return that money, approximately $10 million in taxpayer dollars.

“It is unthinkable that Planned Parenthood would continue to take advantage of funding knowing they were not entitled to keep it,” Paxton said in a statement. “I will not allow them to benefit from this abhorrent conduct after they were caught violating medical standards and lying to law enforcement.”

Texas took action to defund Planned Parenthood from its state Medicaid program in 2015 after undercover videos from the Center for Medical Progress exposed unethical and potentially illegal practices involving Planned Parenthood’s aborted baby body parts trade.

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Planned Parenthood sued, and a judge initially blocked the defunding effort. But in 2020, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the state, agreeing that Texas can kick out Planned Parenthood from the program for violating state policies.

According to Texas Right to Life: “Medicaid providers in Texas are required to follow Texas Medicaid policies and federal and state law. The Texas Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found Planned Parenthood violated federal regulations by altering abortion procedures to harvest baby body parts. Thus, the OIG terminated Planned Parenthood’s provider contract.”

In the new lawsuit, Paxton’s office said the abortion chain knew that it was not entitled to keep the money if it lost its case, but Planned Parenthood has failed to repay it, as required by law.

State pro-life leaders praised Paxton for taking action to recover taxpayers’ money from the abortion giant.

“Thank you to Attorney General Ken Paxton for suing Planned Parenthood to recover $10 million in Medicaid payments,” Texas Alliance for Life responded on Twitter. “Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider, and they don’t deserve any of our tax dollars.”

A lawyer for Planned Parenthood slammed the lawsuit Thursday, claiming it is just “another political attack” by pro-life politicians.

“Planned Parenthood will continue to fight back against all of these false accusations and political attacks and will continue serving patients in Texas – no matter what,” Planned Parenthood general counsel Kumiki Gibson told Courthouse News.

Medicaid is the largest stream of taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood, and, in Texas, the abortion chain received as much as $4 million annually before the state disqualified it from the program, according to Courthouse News.

Some argue that the defunding action will hurt Texans’ access to health care, but Planned Parenthood does not provide much basic health care. Former CEO Leana Wen said its “core mission” is aborting unborn babies. And its own annual reports show that the few actual health services that it does provide, such as birth control, cancer screenings and sterilizations, have been dropping steadily in recent years while its abortion numbers grow.

Meanwhile, community health centers outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities by 20 to one across the country and provide comprehensive health care, including dozens of vital services that the abortion chain does not.

While Medicaid funds do not pay for abortions directly (Planned Parenthood is lobbying Congress to change that), they do indirectly fund its abortion business. Planned Parenthood does about 40 percent of all abortions in the U.S.

Its annual reports show hundreds of millions of tax dollars going to the abortion chain every year through Medicaid, Title X and other programs.

Texas lawmakers have taken steps to cut off other streams of taxpayer funding to the abortion chain as well. In 2019, the legislature passed a law prohibiting government agencies from contracting with groups that provide or promote abortions.

The post Texas Sues Planned Parenthood Abortion Biz to Recover $10 Million in Tax Dollars It Refused to Pay appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Yesterday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed into law a bill that makes killing babies in abortions a “right” in the state and allows abortions up to birth. As a Catholic, Governor Murphy is coming under fire from Catholics who say he totally violated the pro-life principles of the Catholic Church, of which he claims to be a sincere follower.

As LifeNews reported, the bill will legalize abortions up to birth and allowing non-doctors to kill babies in abortions. The legislation guarantees “the fundamental right of reproductive autonomy,” even though women already have reproductive autonomy and choice prior to the decision to end a baby’s life in an abortion as reproduction has already taken place.

The radical measure also could lead to forcing New Jersey residents to fund abortions with their tax dollars. If the state Department of Banking and Insurance deems abortion funding necessary, then state residents could be compelled to pay for killing unborn children in abortions with their tax funds.

The bill also allows “all qualified health care professionals,” to conduct abortions. Although abortion advocates have said for decades that abortions should be “between a woman and her doctor,” the legislation now allows non-doctors to do abortions — putting the life and heath of women at risk.

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In a new statement, Murphy defends his decision to sign the radical pro-abortion bill and says it squares with his Catholic faith and dedication to promote parenthood — even though parenthood is destroyed in an abortion. He wants Catholics to “respect” his decision and the decision to kill babies in abortions, even though abortions permanently destroy a unique human being and forever end any decisions they would ever make.

“To those on the other side of this issue – and there are many overwhelmingly well-intentioned people, many of whom by the way have reached out to me directly – I hope that we can come together in the greater calling of our faiths to make parenthood an easier, safer and healthier choice for anyone or any family in search of support,” Murphy said. “We can each hold our own personal, deeply felt views and still respect each individual’s ability to make their own decisions.”

Murphy relies on a dissident Catholic priest who ignores Catholic pro-life teachings and supports abortion. Instead of relying on Catholic doctrine, papal statements or his own Catholic bishops, he justifies his decision to sign the bill for abortions up to birth based on one priest.

“Last week, Rev. Pat Conroy, a Jesuit priest who served as chaplain for the House of Representatives for 10 years spoke to the Washington Post about being pro-choice and Catholic, as I am,” the governor said. “And he said, and I quote Father Conroy, ‘A good Catholic in our system could be saying given women in our system have this constitutional right, our task as fellow Christians or as Catholics is to make it possible for her to optimize her ability to make the choice.’”

“My own journey and evolution on this issue has not been easy and is one that through great reflection has landed on ultimate respect and trust for others,” Murphy said. “Respect especially for those with limited means for whom restrictions on access to reproductive health care has the most devastating effect, and trust that each of us is our own best judge and advisor.

“To be sure I have leaned on my faith to inform and enhance many of my most deeply held values,” he said. “And as I said, this one has been a hard one for me. Yet I would be running afoul of those very same values if I used my personal faith to deny services, especially health services, to those who reach different personal conclusions through their own faith. I cannot allow that to happen, and I will not.”

Marie Tasy, the director of New Jersey Right to Life, told LifeNews this is a “shameful legacy” for a supposedly Catholic governor to leave.

“By signing a bill that enshrines abortion into law with no gestational limits, Governor Murphy signed the death warrant for thousands of innocent children. The heavy handed abuse of the legislative process and backroom deals that were employed to get this bill passed display arrogance, disrespect for the public, and will carry a shameful legacy for this Governor and the politicians that sponsored and voted for this egregious bill,” she said.

The state’s Catholic bishops are also critical. They expressed “profound disappointment and deep concern” about the legislation.

“We have failed as a society when a response to any pregnancy is fear rather than joy,” the seven New Jersey prelates said in a joint statement. “Sadly, too often this fear is born out of the mother’s uncertainty that she will not be able to provide for herself and her child the resources necessary to live a flourishing life.”

“We must do better,” the statement continued. “Therefore, we urge all Catholics and people of good will to actively participate in breaking down the economic, employment, social, racial, and emotional barriers that lead mothers into thinking abortion is a better option than life.”

The seven bishops of New Jersey are Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, Bishop Kevin Sweeney of Paterson, Bishop David O’Connell of Trenton, Bishop James Checchio of Metuchen, Bishop Dennis Sullivan of Camden, Bishop Kurt Burnette of the Eparchy of Passaic, and Bishop Yousif Habash of Our Lady of Deliverance of Syriac Catholic Diocese.

The prelates charge that the New Jersey lawmakers who voted for the bill “rushed through this Act in the waning moments of their terms” because they “did not want citizens to understand fully its inhuman and lethal consequences.”

They also re-emphasized the Church’s commitment to helping pregnant women.

“The Catholic Church is committed to broadening and increasing awareness about the abundant resources and programs we offer that include life-affirming health and prenatal care, emotional support, assistance in bearing and raising her child, and basic needs such as housing, food, and clothing to pregnant mothers seeking or considering alternatives to abortion,” the bishops’ said.

ACTION ALERT: Send your complaints to Governor Murphy by going here.

The pro-life group American Life League says Murphy is violating the pro-life teachings of the Catholic Church.

New Jersey governor Phil Murphy defines himself as a person who “grew up in a family that was middle class on a good day.” According to his website, he was “the youngest of four children with only one parent who graduated high school. His upbringing—where religion, a strong work ethic, education, and civic awareness were pillars of family life—shaped his values, his priorities, and the leader he is today.”

The governor does not state in his biographical data that he is Catholic, but according to him his parents were “strict Roman Catholics and big fans of politics.”

So we did a little digging to discover whether or not Catholic principles affected this man in any way given the fact that he is a strong, public supporter of assisted suicide and Planned Parenthood, among other things. Lo and behold, Murphy claimed his Catholic identity in a tribute he and his wife wrote upon the death of Monsignor Philip Lowery, who was a pastor, a mentor, and head of chaplains for the New Jersey State Police.

So yes, even as a professed Catholic, Murphy seems to have separated himself from the teachings of the Catholic Church. This is tragic for his soul, sends a false message to the people of New Jersey, and must not go unnoticed by the bishops of the state whose flock depends on them for leadership in times such as this.

It called on the Catholic leaders in New Jersey to deny him communion.

“We prayerfully call upon the bishops of New Jersey to enforce Canon 915. We respectfully ask them to join together in a statement advising Governor Murphy that, if he does currently receive the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, he may no longer receive Him until such time as he repents of his public support for the killing of the innocent and the vulnerable,” ALL said.

Murphy has been rebuked before by a Catholic bishop, when he signed a bill legalizing assisted suicide.

Bishop James Checchio of New Jersey’s Diocese of Metuchen was quick to condemn the governor’s action. Checchio described the new law as part of a “dangerous and frightening trend” and “a brazen attack against the sanctity of human life.”

Speaking before the vote, Marie Tasy, executive director of New Jersey Right to Life, asked why lawmakers want to expand abortions when New Jersey already has the highest abortion rate in the U.S., according to the report.

“Why do we want to have more?” Tasy asked, pointing to the nearly 50,000 abortions that occur in the state every year. This is a “really radical bill,” she said.

According to New Jersey Right to Life, the original bill would invalidate all current and future laws that restrict abortions and allow nurse practitioners and midwives to abort unborn babies. The pro-life organization warned that the legislation also would get rid of the 1974 state conscience clause that protects pro-life medical workers from being forced to help abort unborn babies.

New Jersey Right to Life pointed to a recent USA Today editorial by the governor and Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver in which they admit the bill “expressly allows late term abortions” and keeps parents from being informed if their underage daughter has an abortion.

“They don’t care that the people of NJ don’t support such an extreme edict!” the pro-life organization responded.

According to NJ Advance Media, several Republicans tried to amend the bill in committee to include parental consent for minors but Democrats blocked the action.

New Jersey already has the highest abortion rate in the country and some of the most permissive pro-abortion laws.

Through a new coalition, Working Together for NJ, pro-lifers in the state have been working hard to stop the radical pro-abortion expansion, warning that it could lead to more human trafficking as well as more abortions.

It’s “a human trafficker’s best friend. Sex slaves get pregnant. Human traffickers have to pay for the abortions as a result. But this legislation will require all New Jersey taxpayers to pay for the abortions of sex trafficking victims,” said the Rev. Gregory Quinlan of Center for Garden State Families, last year.

Polls consistently show that most Americans oppose late-term abortions and taxpayer-funded abortions. A 2020 Gallup poll found that 55 percent of Americans think all or almost all abortions should be illegal, while just 29 percent think abortions should be legal under any circumstances.

ACTION ALERT: Send your complaints to Governor Murphy by going here.

The post “Catholic” Gov Phil Murphy Defends Signing Bill for Abortions Up to Birth: I’m Still a “Good Catholic” appeared first on LifeNews.com.

A baby born with her intestines outside of her body was able to go home after 110 days in hospital.

In October last year, baby Autumn Warner from Kamloops, Canada, was able to return home after almost four months in the hospital. She was born nine weeks early and delivered via an emergency caesarean section. She suffered from a rare disability called gastroschisis, which stops the abdominal wall from forming completely and kills up to 10 percent of affected babies.

Gastroschisis occurs when a child’s abdomen does not develop fully while in the womb. The incidence rate is low, with one in 3,000 babies born with the condition each year in the UK.

Despite doctors finding it more challenging to treat Autumn because she was born prematurely, they were able to feed her intestines back into her stomach during an intense operation.

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110 days in hospital

Autumn’s mum, Holly Striloff, 33, and her partner Travis Warner, 32, found out Autumn had the condition in April 2021 when Holly was 18 weeks pregnant.

Her mum said: “I was shocked because it was not something I had ever really heard of before. At the time, it was incredibly overwhelming because we were just concerned for her safety”.

She was admitted to hospital on 2 July 2021 and gave birth at 31 weeks to Autumn — whose low birthweight made her gastroschisis even more difficult to treat.

Ms Striloff added: “There are a lot of complications that come with the condition, but she was also not growing and was in the third percentile”.

“It has been a chaotic and stressful journey and meant that neither of us really rested much with everything happening”.

After difficult surgery which lasted 12 days, and a long time for recovery, Autumn was able to leave the hospital on 23 October 2021.

Ms Striloff said: “I had been dreaming of the day for the whole time we were there, and it will now always be a really special day for us. It was 110 days of sleepless nights, mental exhaustion, trauma, defeat and tears”.

“Yet at the same time, it was 110 days of milestones met, love at first sight, excitement and pure joy”.

“She now weighs 8lbs 4oz and is happy and healthy thanks to the incredible care we received”.

In 2020, there were in England and Wales 21 abortions due to reports that mentioned  “malformations of the digestive system” as a reason for the abortion. It is possible some of these included abortion on the grounds that the baby suffered from the same condition as Autumn, gastroschisis.

Right To Life UK spokesperson, Catherine Robinson, said: “As often happens, this story shows how people born with disabilities can lead normal lives or close to normal lives despite their struggles. Even for those who cannot, they still have a life that is worth living and should be protected under the law from the lethal discrimination present in the current abortion law in England and Wales”.

LifeNews Note: Republished with permission from Right to Life UK.

The post Miracle Premature Baby Whose Intestines Grew Outside Her Body Defies the Odds to Survive appeared first on LifeNews.com.

A three-judge panel of the 7^th Circuit heard arguments yesterday over whether several  provisions of Indiana’s Senate Enrolled Act 340 should be allowed to permanently take effect.

“The underlying lawsuit was filed by abortion providers back in June of 2018 and challenged 25 separate sections of Indiana’s statutory rules on abortions, claiming they served as unconstitutional restrictions on a woman’s right to have an abortion,” David Wells reported.

Judge Sarah Evans Barker of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, issued a permanent injunction barring state employees from enforcing or administering six abortion-related provisions. The following day, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita appealed the federal judge’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit [https://www.in.gov/attorneygeneral].

“Last September a split Seventh Circuit panel stayed the lower court’s injunction until the court issued a final ruling, finding that the state was likely to succeed in its appeal,” according to Wells. “The stay order allowed the challenged provisions to be enforced.”

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Yesterday’s  during the 50-minute-long hearing, two of the three  judges asked whether they should hold off in light of an abortion case before the Supreme Court: Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act [Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health], which protects unborn babies from abortion after the 15^th week.

“One thing that is certainly weighing on my mind is whether this court ought to just hold back given that Dobbs is before the Supreme Court,” said Judge Diane Wood. “I had the feeling preparing for today of a kind of interesting intellectual exercise, but what are we really doing here?”

A decision by the Supreme Court is expected in June.

LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in at National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.

The post Indiana Fights in Court to Defend Pro-Life Laws That Could Save Babies From Abortion appeared first on LifeNews.com.

New trends in the business of abortion have been documented through Operation Rescue’s exclusive 2021 survey of abortion facilities in the U.S.

“We found that the trend toward the use of chemical abortions expanded in 2021. There was a rise in the number of first trimester abortion facilities to accommodate the increased demand,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue.  “Overall, two factors had the most impact on abortion trends in 2021. Those were the passage of the Texas Heartbeat Bill, which prohibits abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, and the new pro-abortion policies of the current administration in Washington, D.C., which include the relaxing of Federal regulations on how abortion pills are dispensed.”

The survey also found the following:

• There are 720 abortion facilities in the U.S., comprised of 448 surgical and 272 abortion pill clinics.  This continues the trend of contracting numbers of surgical abortion facilities while reinforcing the trend toward more facilities focused on chemical abortions.
• The number of surgical abortion facilities in the U.S. that limit abortions to no more than 13.6 weeks increased a notable 33 percent in 2021 to 132 facilities.
• There was a shift away from a willingness to conduct second trimester abortions in favor of first trimester procedures and abortion pill distribution.
• The number of abortion facilities willing to do the unpopular and risky abortions at 20 weeks gestation or later fell in 2021 – down nine percent since 2019.
• The national average cost of a first-trimester abortion dramatically dropped in 2021 to the lowest price in seven years.  This was driven primarily by an expansion of the use of telemedicine for the less expensive (but more dangerous) delivery of abortion drugs.
• The national average wait time for abortion appointments rose to a five-year high of 10.5 days but remained much lower than the national average appointment waiting times for non-abortion-related medical services.

“The outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election was responsible for a significant shift in the way abortion facilities function in America in 2021,” said Newman.  “The data from our survey confirms that the current pro-abortion political administration is driving changes within the Abortion Cartel that are putting the lives of women and their babies at greater risk.”

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Methodology

Each year, Operation Rescue conducts a nationwide survey that involves contact with each abortion business in the U.S.  The information gathered about the abortion clinics and their practices represents the most accurate data available.

This most recent data was compiled by Operation Rescue, which conducted a survey of all abortion facilities in the U.S. from November 15 through December 17, 2021.

Operation Rescue defines “abortion clinics” as those businesses that conduct abortions outside a hospital setting.  There are two categories of abortion clinics:

• Surgical Abortion Clinics: These offices conduct surgical abortions. Almost always, surgical facilities also distribute abortion-inducing drugs.
• Abortion Pill or “Medication” Clinics: These offices supply abortions through the administration of drugs (pills) or other chemical means. They do not conduct surgical abortions.

Gestational Age Limits – Abortion Pill Facilities

While most states set gestational limits on abortions, each abortion facility sets its own self-imposed limit within those parameters on how far into a pregnancy they are willing to conduct an abortion.

Because of the nature of abortion drugs, facilities that offer only that option limit abortions to 11 weeks gestation or less.

In 2021, 33 new chemical abortion facilities opened.  Fourteen additional facilities dropped surgical procedures and now only dispense abortion pill for abortions. Eleven abortion pill facilities halted all abortions or closed for good.

Planned Parenthood now controls 78 percent of all abortion pill facilities, operating 211 out of the 272 such clinics now open.

Abortion pill businesses – both the “brick and mortar” and “pill by post” varieties – increased, due primarily to the Biden Administration’s decision to lift restrictions that required in-clinic visits to obtain abortion pills.  That policy was made permanent by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December 2021.

(More about that in Part One.)

Gestational  Age Limits – Surgical Facilities

Out of the 448 surgical facilities now operating, eight of them opened in 2021.  An aditional eleven facilities were originally chemical abortion facilities, but added surgical procedures last year.  Sixteen surgical abortion facilities halted all abortions or closed permanently.

Here is a breakdown on gestational age limits at surgical abortion facilities.

• There are currently 132 surgical abortion facilities that limit abortions to 13.6 weeks or under.  That is up significantly from 88 facilities in 2020.  This is the only category that saw an increase in 2021.
• Surgical abortion clinics that set self-imposed abortion limits between 14-19.6 weeks gestation numbered 182 in 2021.  This is down from 233 in 2020.  Part of this drop is attributable in part to a decrease in surgical facilities, and in part to a surge in the use of abortion inducing drugs at the expense of other procedures.
• Facilities willing to abort babies at 20 weeks gestation or older dropped slightly in 2021 to 129 – eight fewer than in 2020.

Planned Parenthood operates 176 surgical abortion facilities in the U.S., accounting for 38 percent of all such facilities nationwide.

Third Trimester Facilities

Only a few abortion facilities that offer abortions throughout all stages of pregnancy openly admit to it. Others may state limits under the third trimester of pregnancy even though they will conduct them much later.  Abortion facilities with “fetal indications” programs or conduct abortions for other so-called “medical” reasons, may not admit to conducting third trimester abortions, but those programs are good indicators that they do.

Currently, six abortion facilities openly abort throughout all nine months.  Those include:

• Boulder Abortion Clinic in Boulder, Colorado.

Stated limit: No limit.  (Halted early abortions in 2020.) Owner: Warren Hern.

• Capital Women’s Services in Washington, D.C.

Stated limit: 36 weeks.  Stake Holder: Steven Chase Brigham.

• CARE (Formerly AbortionClinics.org) in Bethesda, Maryland.

Stated limit: 35 weeks.  Owner: LeRoy Carhart.

• Southwestern Women’s Options in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Stated limit: 32 weeks.  Owner: Curtis Boyd.

• Women’s Med Center in Dayton, Ohio.

Stated limit: Under 22 weeks. Ohio law bans abortions after “viability.” Website still offers “fetal indication” abortions, which can run later.  Owner: Martin Haskell.

• DuPont Clinic, Washington, D.C.

Stated limit: None. Mention “beyond Operators: Matthew Reaves, Stacey Rubin, and Jessica Kuperstock.

Removed from the third-trimester list in 2021 is the Pro-Choice Medical Center, in Beverly Hills, California, owned by Josefa Seletz. It closed in January of last year.

Also removed was the Washington Surgi-Center, which reduced its stated limits to 27.6 weeks – one day before the start of the third trimester.  Owner Cesare F. Santangelo has instead added profitable chemical abortions to his list of “services.”

First Trimester Abortion Costs

According to the Centers for Disease Control’s Abortion Surveillance Report for 2019, the most recent year with data available, 92.7% of all abortions take place in the first trimester of pregnancy, at or below 13 weeks gestation.

Operation Rescue has tracked the cost of first trimester abortions for the past seven years because it is most representative of what the average woman would commonly pay.

The overall national average cost of a first trimester abortion in 2021 was $609 – a drop of five dollars over the previous year.  This is the first decrease in the nation average cost for a first trimester abortion at least since 2015.

The cost of an abortion varied by type of abortion and by type of facility.

The average cost of a surgical abortion was $632 – a record high.  It represents an eleven dollar increase over 2020’s average price.

Overall national average for a chemical abortion in 2021 was $589, down $17 from 2020’s average.

However, the cost of abortion drugs varied by where and how the pills were delivered.

• Abortion drugs obtained at surgical abortion facilities nationwide averaged $605 – an increase of seven dollars over 2020 prices.
• Abortion drugs obtained at abortion pill clinics were the most expensive option at $618, even though it represented a drop of four dollars over the previous year.  This decrease is likely due to the increased use of telemedicine at abortion pill facilities in 2021, which are usually less expensive.
• Abortion drugs distributed using telemedicine was dramatically lower at a national average of $418.

From these data points, it is easy to see that the use of telemedicine to deliver abortion pills, either at an abortion facility or by mail, has been the primary reason for the drop in the average of medication abortion prices in 2021.

The fact that abortion drugs obtained at non-surgical abortion facilities are more expensive than the same drugs dispensed by a surgical abortion facility is an interesting one, especially since it is less expensive to operate an abortion pill clinic.  That is because they do not have to be equipped to conduct surgeries and need no surgically trained staff that might require higher salaries.

Billing Trend Continues

In 2020, Operation rescue’s survey discovered an interesting billing trend that seemed to be confined to Planned Parenthood Mar Monte and Planned Parenthood Northern California detected an interesting occurrence not observed in previous years.

That trend continued in 2021.

Those Planned Parenthood facilities charge an astounding $2,009.00 for abortion drugs obtained in clinic and up to $1,838 for first trimester surgical abortions.  This is far above what other Planned Parenthood affiliates and independent clinics in California charge.

Their prices for abortion drugs a whopping $1,420 above the national average.  Surgical abortion prices are $1206 above the national average – a staggering amount.

There is an explanation for this.

Planned Parenthood will take cash payments, but they prefer to bill insurance.  They use a sliding scale based on income when charging women for abortions. Insurance reimbursements are billed to make up the difference. In California, Medi-Cal is a government-run program that provides free or low-cost health insurance.  It has paid for abortions for low-income women and minors for decades.  The state of California is essentially giving the Planned Parenthood affiliates a blank check for every abortion.

That may explain why so many California Planned Parenthood abortion facilities are price-gouging.

“Abortion has traditionally been a cash business.  Now it appears that these Planned Parenthood facilities have quite the profitable racket going.  They charge women a little then bilk tax-funded state programs for the balance of grossly overpriced abortions,” said Newman. “Unfortunately, Planned Parenthood has so much political cover within California’s corrupt government that it is unlikely they will ever be called on the carpet for this suspicious billing scheme.”

Highest and Lowest

Given Planned Parenthood’s exorbitant abortion pill prices, it is not surprising that California posted the highest average cost in the nation for both surgical abortions at $1,014 and abortion drugs at $939.

New Jersey weighed in as the least expensive state for surgical abortions with an average price of $448.00.

The state with the lowest average price for abortion drugs was Maryland at $433.00 – 54 percent lower that California’s average cost

Wait times for appointments

It is not unusual to hear leftist news reports about how women must wait weeks on end to get an abortion appointment due to the passage of pro-life laws.  In 2021, that rhetoric ramped up to hysterical proportions with the passage of the Texas Heartbeat Act.

While it is true that several states are seeing slightly longer wait times, in many other states, it is still business as usual.  In states with no waiting period, like California, for instance, it is still very easy to get an appointment the same day or simply walk in for an abortion.

The national average time for a woman to wait for an abortion rose to 10.5 days from 2020’s wait time of 8.4 days.

This time is measured from the day a woman picks up the phone to make an appointment to the day of her actual abortion procedure.  It includes a first appointment and state-mandated reflection times of 24-72 hours.  When counting waiting days, Operation Rescue included weekends and holidays.

While the 10.5-day national average wait for an abortion represents an increase over 2020, it is not an unreasonable amount of time to wait for an appointment, considering the 2020-2021 national average wait time for a general health care appointments in the U.S.  According to www.financesonline.com, the average wait time for an appointment with a physician in the largest metro markets is 24.1 days — more than double the wait for an abortion.  That adds perspective to the statistic and illustrates that abortion wait times are slow on average compared to wait times for other medical services.

There are three reasons identified by Operation Rescue during the nationwide survey for the longer abortion wait times:

• Staffing issues:  In normal times, fully staffing abortion facilities is a challenge.  However, with the China Virus tossed into the mix, there are times when an abortionist or adequate staffing is simply not available.  The high unemployment payments, which have kept workers out of the employment market, plagues almost every kind of business, including the business of abortion. This has limited availability as some abortion facilities and contributed to longer waiting times.
• Texas Heartbeat Act:  It is true the Texas Heartbeat act is driving women to surrounding states for abortion appointments.  Oklahoma, Kansas, and New Mexico appear to have experienced the largest influx.  However, most states have seen little to no impact on abortion waiting times, according to data obtained during the national survey. However, the Texas Heartbeat Bill has saved lives. Abortions have dropped 50% in that state, thanks to this creative piece of legislation.
• Texas clinics are paying for traveling expenses to states with large numbers of abortion facilities: A receptionist at one Planned Parenthood surgical abortion facility in Texas informed Operation Rescue that they were paying full travel expenses for women to go to states such as New York, New Jersey, and Florida to get abortions.

Conclusions

Late-term abortions

There was an interesting change in the gestational age limits of surgical abortion facilities in 2021.  Our survey revealed a drop in facilities offering second trimester abortions with several of those facilities limiting abortions the first trimester of pregnancy.  This represented a shift in focus to the use of abortion drugs and the use of telemedicine to distribute them.

There was also a drop in facilities that will openly conduct third trimester abortions.  This shift was due to one retirement and another formerly third trimester facility limiting abortions to the end of the second trimester as they added the availability of abortion pills.

Profit-taking

The average abortion cost is reflective of what a woman would pay out of her pocket.  That price fell in 2021 due to an expansion of the use of telemedicine, which can be less expensive that a regular office visit.

The trend toward profit taking persisted in 2021, especially at some California Planned Parenthood surgical facilities, which continued to charge exorbitant prices for surgical and chemical abortions, then pressured clients to allow them to bill their state-financed insurance that has no limits on abortion pay-outs.

Wait times

While the national average wait time for abortions increased in 2021, it remained much below the national average waiting time for other medical services.

Texas Heartbeat Act, which limits abortions to around six weeks gestation when a baby’s heartbeat is detectable, caused some women to seek abortions in surrounding states, extending waiting times there.  However, the sky did not fall, even though news reports about increased waiting times tried hard to convince Americans it had. Operation Rescue’s survey data showed the Texas Heartbeat Act had only a nominal effect on waiting times most states, leaving the national average wait time for abortions reasonably low.

Future in the balance

Operation Rescue’s abortion facility survey identified some disturbing trends, including the increased use of telemedicine and the now-permanent policy that allows abortion pills to be delivered through the mail.

This policy change is expected to open the floodgates in 2022 to opportunistic and unaccountable pop-up businesses distributing abortion drugs through the mail. With abortion pills four times more likely to result in complications than surgical abortions, there will likely be an uptick in emergency room visits.

In 2022, current events will have tremendous impacts on the future of abortion and as well as the direction of our nation.  In fact, America stands at a crossroads in terms of our nation’s future as a free country, and in the matter of abortion. So much is at stake! Which way she will go remains to be seen.

Politics have a great effect on abortion policy, as we saw with the rise of telemedicine use by abortion businesses.  The 2022 Mid-term Elections will determine who controls the U.S. House and Senate for the next two years.  This will undoubtedly affect abortion policy.  If Republicans win both houses of our Congress, we can expect to see them put up a roadblock to some of the pro-abortion provisions that Democrats will surely attempt to push through Congress.  A Democrat win would accelerate plans to pass more legislation to promote, fund, and expand abortion nationwide.

The U.S. Supreme Court is also expected to issue a ruling in the spring on the pivotal Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case that involved a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks gestation.  The High Court is being asked to overturn Roe v. Wade and send the decision on whether to allow abortions back to the states.

Should Mississippi win the case, that decision could prompt the pro-abortion Biden Administration to push Federal legislation that would ensconce unfettered abortion in every state. It may also lead to the packing of the Supreme Court with pro-abortion leftists who would ensure that abortion will be allowed in the U.S. for generations to come.

In the past year, there has also been an erosion of free speech and suppression of truth in favor of political propaganda, especially in online forums and social media platforms.  This is a challenge pro-life supporters must overcome if we are to continue speaking out on the evils of abortion and the precious value of each human life.

“The last election installed an administration which, in just one short year, produced policies that have led liberalized abortion and economic hardships that are known to drive women to seek abortions,” said Newman.  “Elections have consequences, and it is our duty to fight to restore honest elections so that this Constitutional Republic and the freedoms it guarantees can be preserved — freedoms necessary for us to liberate Americans from the horrors of abortion.  This we must do so we can continue to freely advocate on behalf of the most vulnerable amongst us, and with God’s grace, perhaps even end abortion once and for all.”

LifeNews.com Note: Cheryl Sullenger is a leader of Operation Rescue.

The post More Abortion Clinics are Killing Babies With the Dangerous Abortion Pill That Also Hurts Women appeared first on LifeNews.com.

A second Democrat governor, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, is accused of covering up the number of COVID-19 nursing home deaths in her state after she ordered the facilities to admit COVID-positive patients.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, a new state auditor general’s report found that the number of COVID-19 nursing home deaths in Michigan was 42 percent higher than what the Whitmer administration told the public.

The report from Michigan Auditor General Doug Ringler found 8,061 COVID-19 deaths in state nursing home facilities from Jan. 1, 2020, to July 2, 2021; Whitmer’s health secretary reported 5,675 deaths in that same period, the Beacon reports.

“These were people’s lives—not data points—that the Whitmer administration chose to ignore. There must be a thorough investigation and accountability for Governor Whitmer’s failure to protect Michigan’s most vulnerable residents,” said Tori Sachs, the executive director of Michigan Freedom Fund, in response to the report.

When the pandemic started in early 2020, Whitmer and four other Democrat governors issued orders requiring nursing home facilities to accept patients who tested positive for the coronavirus. Many believe those policies led to thousands of deaths because they exposed the people most likely to die from the virus, the elderly and people with serious ailments and disabilities, to patients who tested positive for it. The orders later were reversed.

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According to the Free Beacon:

One suburban Detroit senior care center, for example, saw a spike in cases after it accepted two dozen positive patients from a local hospital one month after Whitmer’s order. While national Democrats lauded the governor for her strict coronavirus rules early on in the pandemic, Michigan now holds the fourth-highest death rate per 100,000 residents, according to the New York Times.

New York also has one of the highest COVID-19 death rates in the U.S. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned due to sexual misconduct allegations, was accused of covering up thousands of COVID-19 nursing home deaths in his state after issuing a similar order.

News of the new Michigan report has lawmakers calling for accountability from Whitmer and her administration.

“We have now seen the true scope of Gov. Whitmer’s dangerous policies, and we must ensure these tragic circumstances do not happen again,” said state Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Wayland, in a statement Thursday. “There is frankly a lot to answer for, and our legislative panel will be working to get those answers.”

The Whitmer administration quickly disputed the findings, claiming the state auditor general used “a different definition of a reportable long-term care COVID-19 death than required by the CDC,” according to the report.

But Sachs accused the governor of caring more about her own political future than the grieving families who lost loved ones to COVID.

“Instead of trying to provide answers for the families who lost loved ones in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, Governor Whitmer and her administration are more concerned with political spin and covering up that they underreported deaths by 42 percent,” Sachs said.

In early 2020, Whitmer was one of five Democrat governors who ordered nursing homes to take coronavirus patients, along with New Jersey, California, Pennsylvania and New York. For months after the orders, these states maintained some of the highest nursing home death numbers, according to data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Some still do.

In June 2020, AARP reported more than 43,000 nursing home residents and staff died from the virus, representing more than one third of all known deaths in the U.S. at the time.

“While dire, this figure is an undercount, experts warn, because not all states are publicly reporting data yet,” AARP reported at the time. “In many states, more than half of coronavirus deaths are connected to long-term care facilities.”

The post Gretchen Whitmer Caught Covering Up Nursing Home Deaths After She Put COVID Patients in Their Facilities appeared first on LifeNews.com.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) on Thursday informed the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) that it would force GOP presidential candidates to not attend debates it runs going forward.

“The RNC will initiate the process of amending the Rules of the Republican Party at our upcoming Winter Meeting to prohibit future Republican nominees from participating in CPD-sponsored debates,” said Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel in the letter addressed to Frank Fahrenkopf and Kenneth Wollack, the CPD’s co-chairs, saying that GOP voters “have lost faith” in the commission’s ability to act in a nonpartisan manner.

McDaniel listed multiple reasons for the RNC’s actions, citing the CPD’s decision to wait until early voting already started before holding the first 2020 presidential debate and its failure “to maintain the organization’s strict nonpartisanship.”

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The proposed changes are set to be voted on during the RNC’s winter meeting in Salt Lake City in February. McDaniel added that the CPD “so far seem[s] designed to delay any reform until it is too late to matter for the 2024 election.”

The commission responded in a statement Thursday, saying that it “deals directly with candidates for president and vice president who qualify for participation.”

“The CPD’s plans for 2024 will be based on fairness, neutrality and a firm commitment to help the American public learn about the candidates and the issues,” it added.

LifeNews Note: Andrew Trusnky writes for Daily Caller. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience.

The post GOP Wants Presidential Candidates to Skip Debates Controlled by Liberal Media appeared first on LifeNews.com.

As hundreds of thousands of pro-lifers gather in the nation’s capital next week to protest the stain of legal abortion in our nation, tens of thousands more will come together in cities across the country at local marches and walks for life.

And we in this movement know that these events are meant to galvanize people into pro-life action for the whole year. The rallies and marches need to be marked by practical calls to action. Otherwise they risk becoming exercises in wishful thinking.

And making it practical also means paying attention to the fact that we are in a critically important election year. These rallies and marches can easily serve as an opportunity to register voters for the critical midterm elections in November.

We must regain the House and Senate if we hope to stop the abortion extremism of the Democrat party. We must vote out every abortion ideologue who is standing for re-election, a group that includes the 222 pro-abortion Democrats currently in the House of Representatives. We must vote in pro-life candidates on every level of government. What pro-lifers can accomplish on the state level has been amply demonstrated in places like Mississippi and Texas.

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The problem is that an estimated 15 to 40 million Christians either are not registered to vote or are registered but do not show up on Election Day. For the 2020 election, the Faith and Freedom Coalition reached out to 5.2 million Christians who don’t regularly vote.

Given the chaos of that election, more people might be planning to sit out the midterms because there is more distrust in the system than ever before.

But giving in to that temptation would simply be handing power to the enemy, and rewarding those who do wrong. It would be a catastrophe politically, strategically, and morally.

Providing voter registration forms to participants in pro-life events – no matter how “non-political” the organizing group may be — is entirely appropriate because no one party is being singled out for registration. Anyone can register. It is non-partisan, and every group, Church, and individual has the right to do that.

At the same time, the reality is that signing up people at a pro-life march means you are signing up pro-life voters. That’s a win-win.

There are some things to keep in mind when planning a registration effort.

• Voter registration rules differ from place to place. Check with your local board of elections. They can give you the voter registration forms for your state, and explain the different options of how to conduct voter registration.
• It can be as simple as just giving people the voter registration form, encouraging them to fill it out then and there, and having them take it and mail it themselves.
• Alternatively, your local board of elections can explain what is necessary for you to be the designated person to collect and mail the voter registration form.
• In communication with the event organizer – or if that is yourself – make sure the voter registration opportunity is announced to all the participants and is easily accessible for everyone at the event.
• Point out that many people think they are registered, but may have forgotten to update their voter file after a change of address, of name, or of party. You can encourage people to check for themselves on their voter registration status at CheckYourVoterRegistration.com.
• Emphasize that registering to vote in no way determines how or for whom they will vote come Election Day. Everyone should be encouraged to continue collecting information on the candidates as Election Day approaches.

Something important to emphasize as you have discussions with potential voters is that should the Mississippi abortion case now in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court turn out in our favor, state elections this year could be more important than ever.

The Court could uphold the law that protects babies from abortion after 15 weeks, or it could go further by overturning Roe v. Wade entirely and returning to the states the opportunity to protect unborn babies throughout their development. Voting for pro-life state legislatures and governors would become an important priority for the pro-life movement.

If your city is hosting a march for life or walk for life, these events provide a golden opportunity. When they are over and the crowds disperse, it will be much harder to sign up these reliably pro-life voters.

So let’s rally and march for life! And let’s make sure that means that every pro-life American who is eligible to vote is ready and equipped to cast a ballot in the 2022 midterm elections.

The post We Must Register Pro-Life Voters at Pro-Life Events, The Lives of Unborn Babies Depend on It appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Missouri House lawmakers considered legislation Wednesday that would defund Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups of state taxpayer dollars.

Planned Parenthood is a billion-dollar abortion chain that does about 40 percent of all abortions in the U.S. Nation-wide, it receives hundreds of millions of tax dollars annually. It also runs the only abortion facility in Missouri.

For years, lawmakers in Missouri and other states have been trying to defund Planned Parenthood and abortion groups of tax dollars, but only a few have succeeded. In many cases, their efforts have been thwarted by pro-abortion lawmakers and court orders from activist judges.

In Missouri, new legislation, House Bill 1854, sponsored by state Rep. Nick Schroer, R-O’Fallon, would disqualify abortion groups and their affiliates from receiving state Medicaid funds through the state Department of Health and Senior Services. The bill also would disqualify entities from the taxpayer-funded program if there is a “conviction of crimes related to fraud and patient care” or if they show “patterns of discrimination,” according to the bill summary.

The News Tribune reports lawmakers and advocates on both sides of the abortion debate discussed Schroer’s bill during the hearing Wednesday.

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“It fully defunds Planned Parenthood pursuant to the [Missouri] Supreme Court decision, giving guidance to the Legislature, and also enacts protections at the state level to ensure that your tax dollars are not subsidizing the heinous act of abortion,” Schroer said.

In 2020, the state Supreme Court struck down a measure to defund abortion groups in the state budget, calling it a “clear and unmistakable violation” of the state Constitution.

Now, lawmakers are trying a different route, specific legislation to strip abortion groups of state taxpayer dollars.

“This is a very important issue to the pro-life community, and it has been for decades,” said Samuel Lee, director of Campaign Life Missouri, during the hearing. “I want to go back to the fact that the Missouri Supreme Court in June of 2020 said if the legislature wants to defund Planned Parenthood you have to do it by statute.”

One pro-life lawmaker, state Rep. Tony Lovasco, R-O’Fallon, raised concerns about language in the bill regarding discrimination, according to the report. Lovasco said he fully supports defunding abortion groups, but specific language in the bill about eugenics and discrimination could be a problem.

“I am concerned that perhaps using a set of least political views by a founder of an organization as a test to determine whether they qualify — we might be on some shaky First Amendment grounds there,” he said.

The language he was referring to involves disqualifying groups that have “a pattern of intentional discrimination in the delivery or nondelivery of any health care item or service based on the race, color, or national origin of recipients, as described in 42 U.S.C. Section 2000d, or was founded by a person who supported eugenics as the solution for racial, political, and social problems and who advocated for the use of birth control for ‘the elimination of the unfit’ and stopping ‘the reproduction of the unfit.’”

Schroer said the language refers to Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, a eugenicist who believed certain groups of human beings were “unfit” to have children.

Similar legislation to defund abortion groups, Senate Bill 637, was introduced by state Sen. Bob Onder, R-Lake St. Louis, this year. Another bill, Senate Joint Resolution 34 filed by state Sen. Bill Eigel, R-Weldon Spring, would amend the state constitution to prohibit any tax dollars from being paid to individuals or facilities that perform abortions.

Nationally, Planned Parenthood receives hundreds of millions of tax dollars every year, the majority of it through Medicaid. Though the federal government and most states, including Missouri, prohibit taxpayer funding for abortions in Medicaid, pro-life leaders say the money that goes to Planned Parenthood still indirectly supports the killing of unborn babies in abortions.

Also, Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups currently are lobbying U.S. Congress to get rid of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer funding for most abortions in the federal Medicaid program. Without the Hyde Amendment, Americans would be forced to pay for the killing of potentially tens of thousands of unborn babies in elective abortions every year.

Planned Parenthood is a billion-dollar abortion chain that aborts more unborn babies than any other group in the U.S. Its most recent annual report listed more than 354,000 abortions, or about 40 percent of all abortions in the U.S. that year. Its annual reports also show billion-dollar revenues, including hundreds of millions of tax dollars.

According to its 2018-2019 annual report, Planned Parenthood received $616.8 million in government funding nationally, approximately 90 percent of which came from Medicaid reimbursements.

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