Advocates for Life

This week, AUL welcomed Dr. James Studnicki, Sc.D., MPH, MBA, who serves as Vice President and Director of Data Analytics for Charlotte Lozier Institute. Dr. Studnicki was most recently the Irwin Belk Endowed Chair in Health Services Research and Professor of Public Health Sciences at the University of North Carolina – Charlotte College of Health and Human Services. Prior to that, he served on the faculty of Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and as Chairman of the Department of Health Policy and Management and Director of the Center for Health Outcomes Research at the University of South Florida Health Sciences Center. Dr. Studnicki’s research has focused on the use of large scale databases, and associated information technology, in analyzing outcomes at the patient, hospital and community levels.

Today’s fifth installment of Americans United for Life’s reflection on the failed twenty-year experiment in legal chemical abortion continues our close scrutiny of the abortion industry’s marketing slogan, “RU-486 is an abortion pill that ends a pregnancy easily and safely.” We’ve seen that it’s not really “a pill”, but an involved process of drug dosages and medical oversight with an uncertain outcome. We’ve also seen that contrary to assurances, it fails to “end a pregnancy” a predictable percentage of the time, and surgical abortion and additional heartache and expense lie ahead for women who undergo it. Today, we’ll focus in on one word in that slogan, a word that slips by so … well, easily … that you’d almost miss it.

Although your abortionist may not tell you this, it’s important to bear in mind this built-in failure rate when considering chemical abortion, and to understand that in a predictable number of cases, it doesn’t avoid surgical abortion; in fact, it only exacerbates the known complications of abortion.

Before we huddle over our defensive strategy going forward, let’s take stock of the strong gains the pro-life movement has made over the last four years. Topping the white board has to be the presence of three new constitutionalist Supreme Court Justices nominated by President Trump and confirmed by the Senate, resulting in a 6-3 pro-life majority. Backing them up will be an increasingly conservative judiciary, with 218 total appointments and counting. President Trump will be the first president in the modern era to fill every available court of appeals seat, a key goal for success in the courts because the federal district courts take their orders from the appeals courts.

Both Georgia Senate races will continue to a January 5th runoff to determine who controls the Senate. If Republicans win one or both Senate seats, they will maintain control of the upper chamber. If Democrats win both, the Senate will be 50-50, making VP-elect Kamala Harris the tiebreaker. If you were hoping for an end to campaign contribution text messages, we’ve got a couple more weeks and two big races coming our way.

On Election Night 2020, Louisiana voters of all party affiliations turned out big time to vote for life. The Bayou State was considering an amendment to their state constitution that would make it clear that it does not guarantee any “right” to abortion. It passed by an overwhelming margin, garnering 62% of the vote statewide – higher than either candidate for President.

The abortion industry would certainly like for you to think it’s an “abortion pill,” since that suggests a “magic pill” one-step process that’s easy and quick. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s not a “pill”, but a difficult and sometimes risky medicalized process that involves two drugs, multiple consultations with medical providers (if they’re doing it as recommended) and inherent risks and potential complications.

The states are energized to pass life-affirming laws in 2021. Of the eleven gubernatorial races, Republicans held seven and picked up Montana, bringing their total to 27 states. Montana Governor-elect Greg Gianforte recently signed onto AUL’s amicus brief in support of the FDA’s safety laws regulating the chemical abortion pill.

Once every four years comes a day when there is only one serious topic in public discourse, and failing to address it head on is just evasion. Welcome to Election Day 2020. And since I’ve never been one to whistle past the pachyderm in the drawing room, I offer an analysis of the possible election result scenarios as I see them and their implications for the fight for the human right to life. These scenarios are likely to have a shelf life of just twenty-four hours. By this time tomorrow, three out of four of these scenarios will have proven me a liar, and maybe all four. If the Year of Our Lord 2020 has proven to be anything, it’s an exercise in Chaos Theory. But since, as we all know, “elections have consequences,” and it’s impossible to restrain the human will to prognosticate, here goes.

Louisiana, which ranked #1 on AUL’s 2020 Life List, has a robust history of passing bipartisan pro-life laws. The Love Life Amendment ensures that there is no “right to abortion” or to taxpayer funding for abortion in the state constitution. It defends against judicial overreach and is a direct response to six judges in Kansas discovering a right to abortion in the state constitution nearly 160 years after it was drafted. The purpose of the amendment is to keep lawmaking authority in its appropriate place, which is the legislative branch.

During his inaugural address in 1961, John F. Kennedy, the newly elected president and standard bearer for the Democratic Party, stood before the nation and proclaimed, ‘The same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe–the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.’ Protecting those fundamental human rights has been a vital part of the work of Senator Katrina Jackson and Senator Regina Barrow.

Pushing the FDA-imposed gestational limits for chemical abortion and the time limit for taking the RU-486 dosages, even though abortionists know doing so raises the danger level for women; disregarding the danger of refusing to properly screen for ectopic pregnancies; failing to take into account whether a patient has access to emergency care, are all par for the course for an abortion industry that seemingly cares more about its bottom line than about patient safety.

Today is the day. Around 7:30 pm, the Senate will vote on the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.