Americans United for Life

Americans United for Life protects and defends human life from conception to natural death through vigorous legislative, judicial, and educational leadership.

Statements

‘Women Speak 2019’ set for May 1st at Heritage Foundation



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WOMEN SPEAK 2019:
A SYMPOSIUM PRESENTED BY AMERICANS UNITED FOR LIFE

Landmark Women’s Conference “Turning the Clock Ahead” To Life After Roe

Register for Women Speak 2019

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Women Speak 2019 will take place on May 1st at The Heritage Foundation, bringing together experts and leaders in law, medicine, economics and the media to critically examine an idea that our political and popular culture takes for granted: that abortion is necessary for women’s advancement in society.

This is the second annual Women Speak symposium hosted by Americans United for Life (AUL), America’s first and largest pro-life legal organization. AUL’s legal strategists have been involved in every pro-life case before the U.S. Supreme Court since Roe v. Wade. Its mission is to protect and defend human life from conception to natural death through vigorous legislative, judicial and educational efforts.

Catherine Glenn Foster, AUL President & CEO says: “It’s a simple fact that almost any time abortion is brought up, abortion activists and opponents of the human right to life claim that those who want comprehensive legal protection for all human beings are trying to ‘turn back the clock’. What we’re doing at AUL through our Women Speak symposium is just the opposite: we’re turning the clock ahead. We’re bringing together a top-notch team of women experts in law, medicine, and culture to reflect on what American life will look like after Roe is consigned to the scrap heap of history.

Going forward, we will have to deconstruct the Supreme Court’s false assertion that women have a ‘reliance interest’ in abortion— and the idea that abortion has ever been necessary for women’s advancement in society. All Americans of goodwill need to do more to ensure women, children, and families —and our whole society— can respond with love and generosity to every human life.”

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:

  • Catherine Glenn Foster, President and CEO of Americans United for Life
  • Helen Alvaré, Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University
  • Catherine Hadro, EWTN Pro-Life Weekly Host
  • Alexandra DeSanctis, National Review
  • Keynote Speaker: Congresswoman Vicki Hartzler (MO-4)
  • View full speaker list
Register for Women Speak 2019

AUL Files Brief Supporting Title X Rule



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Today, Americans United for Life, along with local counsel Stephen C. Whiting, filed a “friend of the court” brief on behalf of AUL in Family Planning Association of Maine v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the Maine district court, supporting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) final Title X rule. 

Title X was enacted to provide financial support for health care organizations offering family planning services and statutorily prohibits funds from going to abortion. Last year, HHS proposed a rule to increase compliance with Title X’s statutory mandates by requiring physical and financial separation between abortion services and Title X projects. AUL submitted a comment in support of the proposed rule. 

The rule was finalized and published in March and is scheduled to go into effect on May 3. So far eight different groups, including Maine Family Planning (MFP), filed legal challenges against the final Title X rule, seeking to keep the rule from going into effect. 

AUL’s brief responds specifically to MFP’s novel argument that the Title X rule violates their patients’ right to abortion and is subject to the undue burden test, arguing that the right to abortion does not include a right to Title X funding and that the undue burden standard does not apply to government funding regulations such as the Title X rule. 

“Despite the fact that abortion is statutorily excluded from Title X projects and funding, Maine Family Panning somehow thinks that the rule violates their patients’ right to choose abortion. This is absurd,” said Rachel Morrison, AUL Litigation Counsel. “The right to choose an abortion is not implicated, much less infringed upon by the rule. It strains logic to think that abortion providers are entitled to Title X funding when the ‘right to abortion’ does not include a right to government funding.” 

The Maine district court will hear oral argument on MFP’s request on April 24, 2019, and the court is expected make a decision by May 3. 

Americans United for Life applauds the enforcement of federal law prohibiting the use of taxpayer dollars to finance global abortion activists



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Americans United for Life applauds today’s actions by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to protect vulnerable life.

Secretary Pompeo announced that, regarding the Mexico City Policy, foreign assistance will no longer be given to NGOs that provide assistance to other groups in the global abortion industry. This change eliminates the potential for backdoor funding of abortion. Secretary Pompeo also announced that the Department of State will be enforcing the Siljander amendment, which prohibits tax dollars from being used to lobby for or against abortion.

“Americans United for Life (AUL) applauds Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Trump Administration for moving strongly to enforce federal law prohibiting the use of taxpayer dollars to finance global abortion activists,” said Catherine Glenn Foster, President & CEO of Americans United for Life. “For too long, the Organization of American States and pro-abortion extremist organizations like International Planned Parenthood Federation have bullied member States into accepting abortion on demand as an international norm, in spite of their dearly held cultural and religious convictions against destroying human life. Today’s announcement that the State Department will strictly enforce the Mexico City Policy and the Siljander Amendment is a tremendous victory for international women’s health and the rule of law.

Americans United for Life further applauds Senators Lankford, Tillis, Enzi, Lee, Inhofe, Kennedy, Bunt, Cruz and Ernst for their leadership in encouraging the enforcement of the Siljander amendment.

New Jersey set to permit suicide by physician



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Despite the New Jersey legislature’s approval of suicide by physician, and the stated intention of Governor Phil Murphy to sign suicide by physician into New Jersey law, Americans United for Life underscores the good news that more states have acted to affirmatively protect their citizens from suicide by physician over the past 20 years than have implemented state-endorsed suicide. Americans United for Life encourages leaders in other states to expand life-affirming choice for persons facing difficult medical situations, particularly those living in poverty, members of the disability community and elder adults.

“It’s a tragedy that New Jersey politicians have passed the so-called ‘Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act’, because while this bill sounds innocuous, its name masks its true purpose,” states Catherine Glenn Foster, President & CEO of Americans United for Life, “which is the legalization of a new form of suicide for persons who might merely be facing the prospect, rather than the certainty, of a terminal situation.”

“We know from national and international experience that these bills always expand in scope,” continues Foster, “which means that what today might seem to some to be reasonable and limited will tomorrow become permissive of a variety of forms of intentional death for persons of all ages and conditions. Once suicide by physician is legalized in any form, the deadly logic behind state-endorsed intentional killing always expands to the point that there are functionally no limits on what sort of self-inflicted violence one might carry out on oneself—or demand a physician or another carry out on their behalf.”

New Jersey is set to become only the seventh state in the nation to condone suicide by physician, sometimes called “physician assisted suicide” or “medical aid in dying”. Americans United for Life advocates comprehensive suicide prevention efforts in light of an apparently increasing sympathy for certain forms of suicide, and encourages persons considering suicide by physician to seek assistance through the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and other national and local resources.

Americans United for Life continues to advocate for life-affirming law and policy, and for the rights of conscience for physicians, nurses, and medical personnel who do not consent to facilitating the suicides of vulnerable persons. As Ezekiel J. Emanuel underscores:

“Patients themselves say that the primary motive is not to escape physical pain but psychological distress; the main drivers are depression, hopelessness and fear of loss of autonomy and control. Dutch researchers [who] … followed 138 terminally ill cancer patients and found that depressed patients were four times more likely to request euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide. Nearly half of those who requested euthanasia were depressed.

“In this light, physician-assisted suicide looks less like a good death in the face of unremitting pain and more like plain old suicide. Typically, our response to suicidal feelings associated with depression and hopelessness is not to give people the means to end their lives but to offer them counseling and caring.”

We can work together to foster a culture that affirms all human life, and rejects violence and self-harm as unethical and illegitimate responses to the challenge of human dignity and solidarity.

AUL files brief on behalf of 77 Members of Congress, supporting Texas’s right to defund Planned Parenthood



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WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 19, 2019)—Today, Americans United for Life filed a “friend of the court” brief on behalf of a group of 77 Members of Congress in the en banc Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, supporting Texas’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood under its State Medicaid program.

The case, Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas v. Phillips, arose after Texas disqualified Planned Parenthood as a State Medicaid Provider when undercover videos revealed that Planned Parenthood was involved in illegal and unethical behavior concerning aborted fetal body parts.

Planned Parenthood and some of its patients sued in federal court challenging the disqualification. A three-judge Fifth Circuit panel held it was required to follow a prior Fifth Circuit case, Planned Parenthood of Gulf Coast v. Gee, that found—based on its interpretation of congressional intent—that individual Medicaid patients have a private right of action to challenge a State’s disqualification determination of their preferred Medicaid provider in federal court.

The entire Fifth Circuit court decided on its own accord to rehear Phillips to reconsider Gee’s holding. This opportunity comes after the U.S. Supreme Court—over a written dissent by Justice Clarence Thomas—declined the opportunity to review Gee in December 2018.

“Members that joined this brief have an interest in seeing courts restrained from speaking where Congress has not spoken,” said AUL Litigation Counsel Rachel Morrison. “The decision below violates the constitutional authority of Congress to dictate the contours of the Medicaid Act, including the right of States to make Medicaid provider qualification decisions. Americans United for Life is proud to give Members a voice by explaining the congressional intent of the Medicaid Act in this important case.”

AUL argued, on behalf of the Members, that implying a private right of action would greatly undermine the purpose of the Medicaid Act by hamstringing the flexibility of individual State Medicaid programs envisioned by the Medicaid Act and eliminating States’ ability to determine the best way to allocate their limited public funds to those in need.

The Members’ efforts were led by Senator Steve Daines of Montana in the U.S. Senate and Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives. Senator Daines formed and leads the Senate Pro-Life Caucus. The Members’ coalition is comprised of 12 Senators and 65 Representatives.

The full list of signers to the brief is below:

U.S. Senate

Steve Daines (MT)John Cornyn (TX)
Joni K. Ernst (IA)James E. Risch (ID)
Mike Braun (IN)Roy Blunt (MO)
Roger F. Wicker (MS)Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS)
James M. Inhofe (OK)Marsha Blackburn (TN)
Michael B. Enzi (WY)John Barrasso, M.D. (WY)

U.S. House of Representatives

Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (TX-26)John Ratcliffe (TX-04)
Ron Wright (TX-06)K. Michael Conaway (TX-11)
Randy K. Weber (TX-14)Bill Flores (TX-17)
Jodey Arrington (TX-19)Pete Olson (TX-22)
Kenny Marchant (TX-24)Roger Williams (TX-25)
Michael Cloud (TX-27)Brian Babin, D.D.S. (TX-36)
Bradley Byrne (AL-01)Robert B. Aderholt (AL-04)
Bruce Westerman (AR-04)Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (AZ-04)
Andy Biggs (AZ-05)Doug LaMalfa (CA-01)
Doug Lamborn (CO-05)Gus M. Bilirakis (FL-12)
Greg Steube (FL-17)Jody Hice (GA-10)
Barry Loudermilk (GA-11)Rick Allen (GA-12)
Steve King (IA-04)Russ Fulcher (ID-01)
Jim Banks (IN-03)Roger Marshall, M.D. (KS-01)
Steve Watkins (KS-02)Andy Barr (KY-06)
Steve Scalise (LA-01)Clay Higgins (LA-03)
Mike Johnson (LA-04)Ralph Abraham, M.D. (LA-05)
Andy Harris, M.D. (MD-01)Jim Hagedorn (MN-01)
Vicky Hartzler (MO-04)Trent Kelly (MS-01)
Michael Guest (MS-03)Steven Palazzo (MS-04)
George Holding (NC-02)David Rouzer (NC-07)
Mark Meadows (NC-11)Ted Budd (NC-13)
Jeff Fortenberry (NE-01)Adrian Smith (NE-03)
Christopher H. Smith (NJ-04)Steve Chabot (OH-01)
Brad Wenstrup (OH-02)Jim Jordan (OH-04)
Robert E. Latta (OH-05)Bill Johnson (OH-06)
Bob Gibbs (OH-07)Kevin Hern (OK-01)
Markwayne Mullin (OK-02)Mike Kelly (PA-16)
Jeff Duncan (SC-03)William R. Timmons, IV (SC-04)
Ralph Norman (SC-05)Phil Roe, M.D. (TN-01)
John Rose (TN-06)Ben Cline (VA-06)
Glenn Grothman (WI-06)Alex Mooney (WV-02)
Carol Miller (WV-03)

‘I am standing up for all women’



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Catherine Glenn Foster, President & CEO of Americans United for Life, shared the following reflections to mark International Women’s Day:

As I celebrate International Women’s Day, I am standing up for all women. For our right to exist, for our right to be free from harm, for our right to participate in society just as much as we choose, for our right to do all these things in the fullness of who we are and were created to be, which for many of us includes parenting.

What a beautiful day to celebrate women and all the unique gifts women bring to the world, including children! My family and my children are such an incredible, profound blessing in my life, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. But the best part is, I don’t have to. I work with a community that appreciates children, that celebrates when I take the time to drive one of my children to camp (and get roped into teaching archery to a hundred preteen girls!), or read them books, or take them on a field trip, or have a snowball fight, or bake them birthday cakes. A community that equally celebrates when my children come to the office for the day or join me as I give a speech or testify on a bill, that doesn’t expect children to be hidden away, seen only in desktop photos and certainly never heard.

(I have dear friends who love to fondly reminisce about the times I’ve traveled the world with an infant in my trusty old BabyBjorn, or nursed a child backstage before walking out and addressing thousands of people, or rocked a child as I addressed a parish hall of the faithful on how they can support and protect the most vulnerable among us.)

A community that celebrates the richness and diversity of life and supports a true work-life balance that beautifully blends the two into who we as women are, unique to each one of us and each one of our stories. I would love to hear your stories … how you blend the different aspects of your life into who you are, or the roadblocks you run into as you try to do that.

And I want to encourage and challenge each of you – any society that tries to make us change who we are to try to fit in, that does not accept each of us as we are, in the fullness of who we are and who we are becoming, is the problem, is what needs to change. We are making progress: with healthcare outcomes, with pregnancy discrimination protections, with parental leave.

We still have a long way to go. But step by step, with the vision of equality in our eyes, I know that women and advocates all around the world are coming together and turning justice into reality for us all.