HOW TO LOBBY

“We in America do not have government by majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” -- Thomas Jefferson

“Just one high quality, thoughtful communication will have more of an impact on a legislator than 10 or 20 or 100 lukewarm communications—no matter whose name is on the letterhead.”

[ adapted in part from MCFL experience, and various sources ]

Here are a few tips to keep handy when you start lobbying for life in Massachusetts. Whether you’re making a phone call or visiting your legislator in person to make your case, telling a personal story about an important issue is much more effective than any town hall mob or purely intellectual fact sheet you choose to use.

Identify yourself. Start by telling them who you are. Make sure to tell them where you live so they know you’re a constituent. (In some cases, such as those where bills are heard in special committee, this is not important. When addressing someone such as a committee chairman, simply introduce yourself as you would any other time.) Do let them know if you are a member of an organization or have a tie to some other group that may have an expert opinion or interest in this issue or law.

Be polite and professional. This is common sense. Also, ask questions first. Don’t assume your legislator opposes or supports the bill, or even knows the specifics of the bill. They see a lot of legislation. So state your views firmly and forcefully without being hostile or argumentative. Be friendly and courteous, even if/when the legislator disagrees with your position. Don’t interrupt or scream out at legislative hearings. Legislators and their staff are also more likely to be persuaded by people in business attire than people wearing cut-off jeans and flip-flops.

State a clear and concise objective. Stay focused on the purpose of your phone call or meeting, and don’t wander off in too many directions. Let them know up front what you are asking them to do, and refer to bills by their numbers and names—such as, “I want Representative Smith to remove his sponsorship of S.B. 1209.” Be sure to explain any jargon that might be unclear, such as “judicial supervision “abortion” “so-called lethal fetal abnormalities.” Generally, limit your list to one bill or issue (although it is not unheard of to address two or three bills that are most important to you).

Explain why this issue is important to you personally. Lawmakers are interested in data and statistics, but they’re much more interested in how an issue affects their constituents personally. If you have a story to tell, it’s much more compelling than charts and graphs. If you’re talking about late-term abortions, you might be an ob-gyn, an ER doctor, or an ambulance driver; you might be the sibling, sister, parent of a woman who has undergrone the grueling late-term procedure; or you may be a post-abortive woman yourself. Perhaps you’ve worked in an abortion clinic, or against sex-trafficking, and have seen first-hand how violent and demeaning abortions are to women. If you’re advocating for patient’s rights legislation, it might be because you had a family member pressured to take lethal drugs when they were ill, or refused life-saving treatment because of their adverse diagnosis. If you’re a teacher or parent, you might comment on the impact removing adult supervision of 12 and 13 year old girls seeking abortions has on them, or how you’ve had students become victims of sex-traffickers, and that removing this provision leaves them in a black-hole once they’re targeted.ey

Don’t use form letters. Legislators want to know what you have to say, not just that you can cut and paste. They know when it’s a form letter, period. It’s okay to use talking points and language from advocacy groups, but it’s best to take that material and put it into your own words.

Use the web and email effectively. Visit legislators’ official web sites before your meetings, so you can learn in advance about their background, biographical information, positions on issues, and even their pets. Phone calls are usually taken more seriously by legislative offices, so if you do send email, you can still follow up with a phone call, too.

Never lie or mislead. The truth for women victimized by abortion is harsh enough. You don’t need to holler. You don’t need to overreact.  Making up facts will always come back to haunt you. Don’t be afraid to say you don’t know the answer to a question, and offer to look it up for them later. The key thing is that you’re a citizen, and you care. You are not expected to be a perfect expert.

Work with legislative staff.  Lawmakers rely on their staff to meet with constituents, draft legislation, learn the issues, and make policy recommendations. Staff are the gateway to your rep. They work on all of the issues you’re concerned about, and are often as important a touchstone as your rep. Develop relationships with aides when you reach out. They will begin to view you as a source of reliable information

Listen to elected officials’ comments and questions. Let them react. Their comments and questions will give you cues on how to frame your arguments and what additional information might be useful. It is especially useful if they ask questions.  You want to leave time for this. It will give you an opportunity to follow up with them after your meeting.

Thank someone who was helpful. Always thank a staff member who took the time to meet with you, and follow up with any additional information that’s needed. And if a legislator does what you’ve requested, such as co-sponsor or remove sponsorship or vote for a bill, be sure to thank him or her for taking that action. Positive reinforcement is the most effective way to develop a good relationship for future issues.

Finally, be persistent. You don’t have to be angry, obnoxious, or discourteous. You just have to be consistent. Keep asking. Keep calling. Even if your legislator disagrees, continue to call and ask for meetings, letting them know you’ll provide additional information, or would like to follow up on other aspects of the issue you’re addressing. This person is a member of your community. They are accountable to you, and the rest of your district. Let them know you -- and many others -- want to keep the communication line open for the benefit of the most vulnerable citizens in our state: our women, infants, children, and marginalized. Ask them to get back in touch with their reply.

Bill S.1209, better known as An Act to Remove Obstacles and Expand Abortion Access in Massachusetts makes extremism look mild.  Massachusetts has some of the most liberal abortion laws in the nation, and the world.

This bill would make abortion in our Commonwealth unsafe for women, common for our underage daughters, and deadly even to infants born alive during the deadly procedure.

See our quick facts on the ROE Act here. 

Sign your name below to say no to extremism, no to abandoning our 13-year-old girls to predators, and our women to non-physicians, and no to expanding abortion in our state

(Both pro-life and pro-choice voters in Massachusetts agree: SD1209 throws the health of women to the dogs, abandons minors to sexual predators and big abortion busines, and unnecessarily reduces culpability for abortionists who botch procedures and butcher the patients on their tables.)

RETURN HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION AGAINST EXTREME ABORTION PROMOTION

Thank you for everything you do in our movement to 

restore respect for every human being

in our Commonwealth.

[ 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.