Commentary

Idaho Chooses Life is sponsoring the annual Treasure Valley Life Chain this coming Sunday afternoon. October 7^th.  2-4 pm.

We’ll be meeting on Milwaukee, at the intersection of Westpark. (Across from the Boise Mall).

This annual event is a tremendous opportunity to bring the horror of abortion out from the shadows. Each year brings miracles as we gather to pray with friends and appeal to our neighbors for the lives of preborn children threatened by abortion.

Such events will be held all across America, in over 1700 communities.

We would be blessed to have you and your friends join hands with us. Call 208-344-8709 if you have any questions.

Planned Parenthood announced this week that it had picked a new national president. In an attempt to rebrand itself as a legitimate health care provider, the nation’s largest provider named Dr. Leana Wen as its new president.  She replaces Cecile Richards, a pure political hack.

The abortion chain is already playing on Wen’s Chinese background, as she and her family were granted asylum in the late 1990’s. Wen and her family became citizens in 2003.

During her years in medical school, Wen was a volunteer for Planned Parenthood.

The spin from Planned Parenthood ignores the fact that communist China is a gross example of what can happen to a society that embraces the wholesale destruction of innocent children through abortion. Dr. Wen herself has no record of opposing China’s horrific treatment of women and preborn children – especially baby girls.  And you can be sure that she and Planned Parenthood will continue to overlook the barbarous practices of that nation.

Instead, Dr. Wen will be paraded about on talk shows in a white jacket to perpetrate the con job that Planned Parenthood is all about protecting women’s health.

Already, she has appeared on the “View”, proclaiming that abortion is a relatively small part of what Planned Parenthood does. She was challenged on the show by at least one host.  And Planned Parenthood has been chided by liberal outlets like the Washington Post for attempting to deceive people into thinking that just 3% of their “services” involve abortion.  But facts should not be allowed to get in the way of good political spin.

Regardless of Dr. Wen’s credentials, the organization is the largest death merchant on the planet. Plain and simple.  It is outrageous that taxpayers continue to be held hostage by a dawdling Congress.  Even worse: Federal and state governments go on lending legitimacy to this nefariously political organization, thereby encouraging women and girls to seek medical care from an outfit that kills babies for profit.

American women deserve better.

A national organization tracking United Way activities across the country issued a report this past week, showing that various chapters of the United Way charity donated nearly 2.8 million to the country’s largest abortion chain in 2016. That is the last year for which public records are available.

A group called 2^nd Vote made its research public, identifying 62 chapters in 29 states that help sustain Planned Parenthood’s efforts to make abortion of no greater consequence than taking an aspirin for a headache.

United Way officials attempted to downplay the importance of their support for the Abortion Industry by claiming that Planned Parenthood does “a lot of good” – including providing “counseling services” and “family planning” to low income women.

Pro-Life leaders across the country expressed their outrage, and challenged the United Way to clean up its act.

Alveda King was quoted by LifeNews.com:

“On the surface, United Way appears to be a good source of charity. However, Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider, received donations from United Way.  You decide: don’t people need to know when their money is funding child-killing?”

The simple fact is that United Way’s $2.8 million donation effectively covered the cost of performing 2900 abortions.

We dug into the details of the 2^nd Vote report to find out whether United Way chapters in Idaho were among those funding Planned Parenthood.  The Twin Falls chapter of United Way was not included because 2^nd Vote could not find their public 1099 forms at the time of publication.  However, they did review the other Idaho chapters, and none reported giving money to Planned Parenthood.

In a shocking revelation, the nefarious activities of the Food & Drug Administration have recently exposed. CNS News and Operation Rescue discovered that the FDA has proffered a public contract to Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR) based in San Francisco to purchase “fresh human fetal tissue”.  The tissue will be grafted into mice to create “chimeric animals that have a human immune system”.

Let’s set aside the profound moral question of creating “chimeric animals” in the first place.

The first outrage is the simple fact that a federal agency has signed a purchase agreement with ABR to buy fetal tissue from elective abortions. That is our federal government.  Supported by our tax dollars.

The national scandal exposed several years ago demonstrated a strong business partnership between Planned Parenthood and Advanced Bioscience Resources.

Pro-Life groups have been issuing statements over the past week, urging the Trump Administration to intervene and halt the trafficking in aborted baby parts. As of this writing, we are unaware of a public response by President Trump or lesser lights in the Executive Branch.

LifeNews reports that one of those expressing outrage is Dr. David Prentice, Research Director at the Charlotte Lozier Institute:

“It is outrageous that the FDA would aid in the trafficking of aborted baby parts and fetal tissue. High-quality, modern scientific research has no need for unethical, tainted practices and grisly sources.  Our government should lead in ethics and in science, and should rescind any contracts for or use of aborted fetal tissue.”

Idaho Chooses Life led efforts in the Idaho Legislature to ban such practices at Idaho’s public universities, following revelations of Planned Parenthood’s dark money-making scheme.

It is time for our congressional delegation to join the public call for the President to personally intervene with the FDA.

This organization is very tainted by the people appointed by Barack Obama. They continue to shield the Abortion Industry from public scrutiny by suppressing data about the complications arising from the use of RU-486.  And they have accommodated every demand by Planned Parenthood to loosen protocols and safety restrictions on chemical abortions.

“The Swamp” is clearly not limited to the Department of Justice or Federal Bureau of Investigation. No doubt it will take time for the president to clean house in this agency.  But he must move quickly to stop this outrage.  We cannot let this trafficking agreement stand.

The street brawl is on. President Trump kept his promise to nominate a justice for the Supreme Court from his published list.  That is a unique event in history.  One could make the argument that Trump’s handling of his campaign and his transparency in telling the citizenry, beforehand, exactly who he would send to the Court gives him something of a public mandate here.

Of course, that makes little difference to the unhinged Left. Particularly its core Abortion Rights constituency.

We were hoping for a different nominee, to be honest. But the early reviews from national pro-Life groups indicate that Brett Kavanaugh is a very solid choice.  The Family Research Council, Americans United for Life and Operation Rescue have all sent very strong signals of support in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s announcement.  We have been in touch with one of the most respected pro-Life attorneys in the nation, Mr. Paul Linton, and he believes that Kavanaugh is likely to help form a new majority on the high court, one more sympathetic with the plight of preborn Americans.  He also believes that Judge Kavanaugh will be difficult to defeat in the U.S. Senate.

We hope that at least a few Democrats will be willing to support Kavanaugh, because the numbers look a bit difficult. Republicans have a bare majority, given the continued refusal of John McCain to resign his Senate seat.  And there are the two remaining pro-abort Republicans in the Senate – Collins and Murkowski to worry about.

Of course, Judge Kavanaugh has been confirmed by the Senate in a previous administration. It is hard to argue that a sitting appellate court judge is suddenly “unqualified” to be a justice on the high court.  But, again, logic and reason are no obstacles to the NY Times or Planned Parenthood.  They smell trouble and they will fight like cornered convicts in a prison riot gone bad.

Which brings us to an important topic – worthy of additional commentaries in the future: It would be a big mistake for the pro-Life community to leap to the conclusion that Kavanaugh’s confirmation will be the end of Roe. That may, for the first time, be a real possibility in coming years.  But we will likely have to await another appointment.  And the right case.  We think it is much more reasonable to see the addition of a conservative to the court as opening up new possibilities for the states to become more aggressive in protecting the lives of preborn children.  Important groundwork will have to be laid with the generations of Americans who have been taught to believe that killing a baby in the womb is a “right” – of no greater moral consequence than having a tumor removed.

We all must be in prayer for this nominee and his family.  The pressure on him will certainly be immense.

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in the case of NIFLA v. Becerra, overturning a previous 9^th Circuit ruling involving a California law that forced pro-Life pregnancy centers to refer women for abortion.  Becerra is the Attorney General of California.  NIFLA is the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates.  They were joined by numerous pro-Life pregnancy centers.

As we’ve written before, there has been a new attack line on the pro-Life movement in recent years. Draconian laws have been passed in (at least) California and Hawaii to hamper the efforts of the pro-Life community to save preborn children and their mothers.  The 9^th Circuit got its way around the First Amendment by arguing that California was only trying to regulate “professional” speech.

In his majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas made it clear that the U.S. Supreme Court has never recognized categories of free speech – based upon who was doing the speaking. There is just free speech. And the government is not free to compel speech.

One would have hoped that the learned people on the 9^th Circuit might have known that already.

We fully expected to win this case. We have dealt with the issue of professional speech a number of times when we have sought to pass laws requiring doctors to provide information to women considering abortion (informed consent).  Supreme Court precedent has made it clear that we cannot make a doctor say something he or she would not otherwise choose to tell a patient.  (Requiring them to provide written material, prepared by the State of Idaho, is a different matter).

What is surprising, however, is the fact that four justices of the Supreme Court – Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan – had no problem overlooking the Court’s own precedent to advance their ideological agenda. More importantly – the First Amendment itself represents no substantial obstacle for these people, either.  It is painfully obvious that, for these leftist activists, the Constitution means little except as it can be manipulated into providing the means to an end.

This is a radically different view than the one held by the Founders. Those ancients saw the Constitution as the end itself.  Opinions, movements and problems change from time to time.  The solutions reached by society from time to time can be flexible.  But the Constitution enshrines eternal truths about man and his proper relationship to government; whimsical political solutions cannot be allowed to violate the fixed nature of man and the rights he has acquired as an expression of God himself.

Classical liberalism once defended such a view of the Constitution – and it fought hard for those ideals. It is very troubling to see that no such understanding exists today among the American Left.  They have been seduced by their own self-righteousness into a kind of soft totalitarianism.

About all we can add is a prayer of gratitude: Thank the Lord Trump won. A Clinton justice would have vindicated the 9^th Circuit.  That outcome would have set the stage for government using its coercive powers to drive the pro-Life movement from the public square.

The Death Lobby recently filed a federal lawsuit against the State of Idaho, arguing that Idaho’s law on “living wills” or “advance directives” is “unconstitutional”. They are joined by the Abortion Lobby in pressing for an expanded right to destroy preborn children under the rubric of “women’s rights”.

The key issue: Idaho’s 2005 updated law on living wills provides an exception if the woman is pregnant. The justification for this exception is simple – in that case, there is another life involved.  And the State of Idaho and medical personnel have a moral and legal responsibility to defend the separate rights of that preborn child to life.

The whole debate around “living wills” involves very serious moral, legal and spiritual issues. These legal documents outline the treatment choices a competent adult would make in various cases.  For example, if you were in an accident and descended into a coma – would you want extraordinary medical intervention to preserve your life?  Would you choose to receive food and water – while foregoing treatment options like breathing machines?  And at what point would you choose one or more options?

Often, these living wills come down to making predetermined choices about when and how one might choose to die. Those theoretical questions are difficult enough for a person to make, because so much is unknown at the time those documents are signed.  Many can justify such a limitation on future medical treatment because they feel they are doing their family a favor by relieving them of the burden of making difficult choices for a loved one.  But this is an area fraught with troubling moral and spiritual questions in the clearest of circumstances.

The moral problems expand exponentially when one considers that this lawsuit seeks to gain a ruling striking down Idaho’s protections for preborn children.

It is one thing for an adult woman to choose death for herself, under the present structure of Idaho’s Living Will law. But it is a whole different question when one considers that there is another life at stake.

Let’s look at just one implication of this lawsuit: What if a woman files a living will with the state, stating that she does not want food & water in certain circumstances.  A couple of years later, she gets married.  Then pregnant.  But her legally-binding choices are not updated in light of her new circumstances.  Suddenly, she is in the hospital after an accident.  The doctors would be required to follow her previous wishes, regardless of the desires of her husband – even if he were certain that his wife would want to preserve their baby’s life by staying on life support.  It is our understanding that the filed living will would overrule any other consideration.  The hospital and courts would be bound to honor the wishes outlined in that old document.  That is but one reason that the Idaho Legislature had the wisdom to provide for the pregnancy exception when updating this highly complex code section.

One of the participants in this lawsuit is “Compassion & Choices” – a leading advocate of assisted suicide in the nation. We previously battled them here in Idaho when they decided that the Gem State needed to widen its welcome mat for an evil philosophy built on the worship of death.  (These are the people who have hoodwinked Washington and Oregon; they are at work in California as we speak).

They are back in Idaho to advance their dark agenda – this time, hiding behind the curtain of “women’s rights”.

So it is now up to Lawrence Wasden to defend the thoughtful work of the Idaho Legislature. Frankly, his record in the area of defending preborn children leaves a lot to be desired.  Most of the time he loses quickly to the Abortion Lobby.  So we are concerned, particularly because the case is already highly politicized:  One of the pregnant women participating in the lawsuit is Chelsea Gaona-Lincoln, a Democrat running in Caldwell for the Idaho House against our good friend, Rep. Greg Chaney.

One interesting dynamic of this lawsuit is the fact that Ms. Lincoln’s baby is expected in July, which would seem to raise questions about her legal standing to bring this suit.

Ms. Lincoln’s spouse – Democrat Evangeline Beechler – is also running for the Legislature, and is the Democrat nominee against Sen. Jim Rice this fall. Both have been very active advocates for the LGBTQ agenda at the Legislature.

We need to be encouraging Mr. Wasden to stand tall and expend the resources necessary to win this important case.

The folks at Planned Parenthood must be giddy over their incredible good fortune, just when they needed a shot in the arm. President Trump continues to press in on their tax subsidies.  His administration just announced that they are going to revise the rules regarding Title X money.  Now the rules will match the language of the federal law duly enacted by Congress.  No longer will the federal government allow grantees to treat abortion as a legitimate method of “birth control”.  Now Planned Parenthood will have to maintain separate facilities – one for their abortion business, another for delivering “family planning” services.  But more on this great development later.

Just when things were looking rather bleak for the Abortion Industry – Idaho “conservatives” delivered a huge Christmas gift months early. In last week’s primary, a lion of the pro-Life movement, Rep. Tom Loertscher, was defeated for re-election by 139 votes out of over 6400 cast.

We can see Planned Parenthood and the LGBT activists partying all weekend, dancing around the Golden Calf, giving thanks to the gods they serve.

There is no person in the Legislature who has done more to thwart their evil agenda than Tom Loertscher. He has carried numerous bills into law over his nearly-three decades of service to the People of Idaho.  Like Parental Consent for minors to get an abortion.  Like conscience protections for medical workers who don’t want to do abortions.  Or restricting the use of RU-486.

But names on important bills is only a small measure of Loertscher’s contributions to defending families, babies and religious liberty. As Chairman of the House State Affairs, he has been a critical behind-the-scenes negotiator with agencies and other lobbies to move the pro-Life agenda forward.  The hours he has devoted to securing our victories in the Idaho Legislature are beyond count.

He has stood so many times, fearlessly and firmly confronting Planned Parenthood and the other wacko groups which come before his committee. Politely and wisely he has worked through the process to protect our most essential values and freedoms.  Loertscher has stood, a giant of a man, in the way of those who would prey upon our children and vulnerable women.  He has always found the courage to defend decency.

Nor will we be the only ones who will miss him: Loertscher was a rare legislator with a deep reverence for the Constitution and the institution of the Legislature itself. He knew the rules and traditions which allow the Legislature to function civilly, restraining political egos gone mad.  His long public service has given him a deep wisdom, allowing him to see beyond the passions of a particular moment, to keep his eyes on the principles which nurture and renew a Republic.

To our friends at Planned Parenthood: Enjoy your moment. Even as we grieve the loss of Tom Loertscher, we trust that the Lord will raise up new leaders to help defend the Gospel.  And to our friends claiming to be the guardians of a new “conservatism”: You have no idea the damage you have done through your foolishness.

We offer sincere congratulations to Lt. Governor Brad Little on his primary election win this week.

Mr. Little overcame substantial obstacles to secure his victory. He faced a certain fatigue among Republican voters since he was an integral part of the Otter Administration.  It was common knowledge among political operatives in Idaho that he was behind in the race for Governor for much of the past year.

Yet Little doggedly pursued his dream of leading Idaho. He personally campaigned as hard as any candidate on the ballot this year.  That suggests he will bring vigor to the Governor’s office.

But first he will have to overcome a concerted effort by national Democrats this fall.

Paulette Jordan fits the mold of chic identity politics better than just about anyone else running in the country. She is a young feminist, she is an attractive female, and she is of Native American descent.  National Democrats will be more than willing to pour massive dollars into her campaign – which is not so much about their belief that Jordan will win, as it is a chance to burnish their own credentials and bring offerings to the altar of progressivism.

Ms. Jordan has already been embraced by Planned Parenthood – which is only right, given her perfect anti-Life record in the Idaho Legislature. For a while, she served on the House State Affairs Committee, so we have considerable experience with her on abortion and related life issues.  She was always pleasantly hostile.

But there will be plenty of time to deal with the general election.

We are almost at the end of the longest primary election season in memory. And we believe it is time to ask for the Lord’s guidance, provision and healing.

Passions are high, many blows have been struck. Relationships are strained.  Candidates and campaigns are under great stress as the hours wind down to Election Day on Tuesday.  The stakes are high for those individuals; even higher for the People of Idaho.

We ask that you join with us in asking the Lord to bless those people who have sacrificed so much to be on the ballot. Even those with whom we disagree.  After all, every candidate running is helping renew the strength of the Republic by offering us viable choices.  That deserves a certain respect.

We also ask the Lord for healing of the Body Politic – especially within Idaho’s conservative community. We particularly ask for prayers on behalf of the Yates family, who have been subjected to one of the most vicious personal attacks we’ve witnessed in Idaho politics.  But there is plenty of need for healing and reconciliation all over the place.

May the Lord give us wisdom and discernment.

And we ask the Lord to give us the leadership we need on Tuesday. There are children to serve and protect; rights to defend and opportunities to seize.