[ Our current communications intern makes a timely report on the background of the recent bill, shut down in the Senate, to protect infants born alive after abortions, exploring Virginia Governor Northam's infanticidal comments as well. ]

by Sofia Infante, MCFL Communications Intern

In response to recent comments advocating for infanticide by Virginia Governer, Ralph Northam, Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) announced his intention to introduce a bill to be passed by unanimous consent that would provide legal protections to infants born alive in botched abortions. The process of unanimous consent means one vote in opposition prevents the bill from moving forward. The Born-Alive Survivors Protections Act would ensure that babies born during abortion procedures would receive life-saving medical care. Currently, only 26 states have laws protecting babies who have survived abortions.

On Friday, April 13, 2018, a group of a dozen high school-age homeschoolers gathered at the Massachusetts State House to learn the history of the grand building, how our legislature works, and to learn how to lobby their legislators on issues that are important to them.

Anne Fox, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, welcomed the young people to the hearing room on the fourth floor of the State House and gave them some background. She told them that the Massachusetts Constitution is the oldest working constitution in the world and is the model for many other constitutions, including our own US Constitution. She also gave some brief background on the work of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, including our work empowering pro-lifers across the state to take action and ask their elected representatives and senators to vote for or against legislation related to pro-life matters.

By Anne Fox, President of Massachusetts Citizens for Life

The Governor of Hawaii has signed the law, making Hawaii the sixth state to legalize assisted suicide (plus the  District of Columbia). Hawaii has had more bills introduced to legalize assisted suicide than any other state, having defeated more than 40 bills over the past two decades. Compassion and Choices had virtually unlimited funds to spend in Hawaii and it was too much for our coalition to overcome.

To date, here are the bills/initiatives, besides Massachusetts, that have been defeated in  2018:

• Connecticut:   HB 5417, bill died in committee
• Indiana:  HB 1157, no action taken on the bill
• Maine:  Petition campaign for a ballot initiative failed, wrong papers filed  
• Nebraska:  LB 450, no action take on the bill
• New Hampshire:  SB 490, bill to study end of life options, defeated in the Senate
• Utah:   HB 210, no action taken on the bill
• Wisconsin:  AB 216, SB 312, no action by either house

Ten states have passed bills to prohibit assisted suicide during the same time period that six states have voted to legalize, so we are ahead but can take nothing for granted.

The pro-lifers in Hawaii worked very hard...

Photo: MykReeve/Wikimedia Commons. CC-BY-SA-3.0.

By Nancy Valko

When abortion was legalized in the 1973 Roe v Wade decision, we were told that abortion should be a private decision between a woman and her doctor.

Now there is a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union to force the state of Maine to allow abortions by non-physicians such as nurses and midwives.

Why? Although Planned Parenthood and the ACLU claim that this is about the safety of first-trimester abortion and the lack of enough accessible abortion clinics as well as “threats of violence”, the truth is that it is getting harder and harder to find doctors willing to do abortions.

This new expansion of abortion is part of a larger movement to remove restrictions on abortion. According to the liberal Public Leadership Institute, already “California, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon and Vermont allow trained and licensed APCs (advance practice clinicians like nurses and physician assistants) to perform aspiration abortions.” 

The Institute even provides model legislation for states called the “Qualified Providers of Abortion Act” and cites the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists as recommending “expanding the pool of non-obstetrician/gynecologist abortion providers by training advanced-practice clinicians (APCs)—nurse practitioners, certified nurse-midwives and physician assistants—to perform aspiration (aka suction or vacuum) abortions.”

By Anne Fox, President of Massachusetts Citizens for Life

As of 4:00pm today, the doctor-prescribed suicide bills have been sent to a study committee, which effectively kills them!

We were working against 40 bill sponsors, the media, and Compassion and Choices (formerly the Hemlock Society) which has four full-time, paid employees in the state.

How did we overcome all that?  So many, many of you testified; 25 doctors held a Doctors' Day at the State House; they and members of the disability community visited committee members at the State House; and you visited them in their districts.

Aides told us what really did it: They were counting calls. You called, and got so many others to call and that did it!

People who are elderly, who are poor, who have disabilities or terminal illnesses are safe until after the election - thanks to you.

We can celebrate together at the Convention on Saturday.

You are the best - bless you!

By Helen Cross

Fourth in a series: The Abortion Industry Plays a Key Role in Human Trafficking

Eighty percent of human trafficking involves the sexual exploitation and coercion of women and children.

From bioethicist Wesley Smith's article in National Review ”Bill to Let Sex-Traffic Victims Sue Their Tormenters”:

In January, President Trump issued a proclamation opposing human trafficking and slavery, bringing needed attention to an evil that too often remains unseen in the darkest shadows of society.

More is needed, obviously. Here’s a good idea pending in Congress to aid this righteous cause. HR 1865 would add criminal penalties to the federal law for 'facilitating the prostitution of another person' — with extra penalties if five or more persons are so facilitated — specifically and explicitly including those prostituted in online exploitation schemes.

Perhaps most notably, the bill would create an explicit right for sex-trafficked victims to sue their tormentors in federal court: Civil Recovery.—Any person injured by reason of a violation of section 2421A(b) may recover damages and reasonable attorneys’ fees in an action before any appropriate United States district court.”

The text of H.R.1865 - Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 states the Act would “amend the Communications Act of 1934 to clarify that section 230 of such Act does not prohibit the enforcement against providers and users of interactive computer services of Federal and State criminal and civil law relating to sexual exploitation of children or sex trafficking, and for other purposes.

“It is the sense of Congress that—

(1) section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 230; commonly known as the “Communications Decency Act of 1996”) was never intended to provide legal protection to websites that unlawfully promote and facilitate prostitution and websites that facilitate traffickers in advertising the sale of unlawful sex acts with sex trafficking victims;

(2) websites that promote and facilitate prostitution have been reckless in allowing the sale of sex trafficking victims and have done nothing to prevent the trafficking of children and victims of force, fraud, and coercion; and

(3) clarification of such section is warranted to ensure that such section does not provide such protection to such websites.”

Next: Human trafficking awareness day and President Trump's proclamation of January 2018 as National Slavery Human Trafficking Prevention Month

By Anne Fox, President of Massachusetts Citizens for Life

Arkansas has passed a law outlawing dismemberment abortions, during which the baby is chopped up so she can be removed from her mother. In Arkansas in 2015, 683 out of 3,771 abortions were by dismemberment.

The ACLU has challenged the law and attorneys general in 15 states are fighting to keep brutal dismemberment abortions legal throughout the United States. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is one of them.

All abortions are sickening, but dismemberment abortions are particularly repulsive. It is not as though Arkansas is the only state to outlaw them. Dismemberment bans have been voted into law in Kansas, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. Mississippi and West Virginia have their laws in effect, while the other states are battling legal challenges.

As we all know, the odds of such a law in Massachusetts are not good, which is why we have to fight even harder here.

Photo: Jonny Yao/Flickr. CC-BY-ND 2.0.

By Anne Fox, President of Massachusetts Citizens for Life

A vote is expected on "Child Tax Credit for Pregnant Moms", an amendment sponsored by Sen. Steve Daines to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (H.R. 1). The amendment is cosponsored by Sens. James Lankford, Joni Ernst, Jerry Moran, and Roy Blunt.

By Anne Fox, President of Massachusetts Citizens for Life

In the past month I have had five calls from college students from across the country who are doing papers on the McCullen v Coakley buffer zone Supreme Court decision. Their approach tells a lot about the scholarship of their professors. One of the things they want to know is what impact the decision had. Of course, it caused a new, less onerous law to be passed in Massachusetts. In the short run, some municipalities wanted to pass buffer zone laws in defiance of the decision. In the long run, probably fewer new laws have been passed, but, on the surface, it hasn't had a huge impact. Those wonderful sidewalk counselors get their work done consistently, lovingly, and effectively under all circumstances.

There are many pro-lifers in the ranks of healthcare professionals, which makes sense given their profession is about saving lives and that is based on science, which tells us that life begins at conception. However, those pro-life professionals are increasingly being forced to take part in medical procedures that violate their consciences.