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Labrador Signs Letter Urging Defunding of Planned Parenthood

May 1st, 2018

A substantial portion of the U.S. Congress issued a letter today urging the Department of Health & Human Services to revise its rules granting “Family Planning” funds to abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.

Congressman Labrador was one of 153 members of the House to co-sign the letter.

A companion letter was signed by 41 members of the U.S. Senate, including Idaho’s own Mike Crapo and Jim Risch.

Strangely, Congressman Mike Simpson did not sign the House letter. Simpson just misses too many such opportunities to defend the vulnerable.  In this case, it is particularly troubling because of the substantial power Simpson holds on budgetary matters.

Planned Parenthood continues to receive about $60 million each year from federal and state taxpayers through the Title X “Family Planning” program. This is in addition to the hundreds of millions it gets under the Medicaid program – a situation which screams for Congressional action.

The Senate letter points out that Congress acted decades ago to restrict Title X monies away from any entity that promotes abortion as a method of family planning. Yet regulations adopted by the Clinton Administration undermine the clear intent of Congress by granting monies to Planned Parenthood.  In fact, the current regulations actually require that agencies receiving Title X money refer pregnant women for abortion.  The still-in-effect regulations allow Title X grantees to share waiting rooms, staff and facilities with abortion clinics.  Obviously, such regulations are tailor-made for Planned Parenthood operations.  And they invite direct and immoral financial subsidies to the Abortion Industry.

The signatories urge Secretary Alex Azar to restore regulations which were in place in 1988: Title X money may not be used to promote, counsel or refer clients for abortion.  And no grantee under the old regulations could be located in an abortion-providing facility.

Such a regulation would make substantial progress toward the goal of ending our sordid partnership with the most evil organization on earth. We applaud Labrador, Crapo and Risch for standing up for preborn babies and taxpayers.

Fulcher for Congress

April 30th, 2018

The Board of Idaho Chooses Life has voted to endorse Russ Fulcher for the U.S. Congress in Idaho’s 1st District.

Fulcher’s history with the pro-Life battle is deep and long. His passion for defending God’s gift of Life is measured by his actions over decades.  Russ was the first president of Idaho Chooses Life Alliance, Inc., the 501(c)3 arm of this ministry some eighteen years ago.  Over the years he has helped raise money for the pro-Life movement in Idaho.  Not just this ministry but pro-Life pregnancy centers like Stanton.

In his second year in the state senate, Fulcher sponsored the final Parental Consent Law in the Senate, following a decade-long battle to protect our daughters from the lies, deceptions and manipulations of the Abortion Industry.

He led the Senate fight on our legislation to make it a felony to assist or participate in the suicide of another person. This law was a direct response to the threat posed by a national group (“Compassionate Choices”) which decided to target Idaho as the next victim in their campaign to legalize and normalize assisted suicide across America.  With Fulcher’s help, we were able to push them out of Idaho.  And they’ve not been back since.

Fulcher then moved into a leadership position in the State Senate, in which he became a facilitator and advocate of the pro-Life agenda.

In contrast with the other candidates, Russ Fulcher’s commitment to saving God’s little ones is profound and rich in concrete, effective action.

One of his opponents, Luke Malek, claims to have a “100% pro-Life record”. That claim is false.  He carries a B- grade with this organization.  He voted to implement ObamaCare in Idaho.  Even worse, he voted against our Religious Liberty Amendment to the Insurance Exchange that same session – an amendment based upon the Hobby Lobby lawsuit that sought to protect Idaho employers from being forced into paying abortion-causing drugs.  (And, by the way, Fulcher was a co-sponsor of that amendment in the State Senate, along with Sheryl Nuxoll).

Rep. Christy Perry has a worse Life Rating: She has a ‘C’ grade.  She shares the Malek votes for ObamaCare and against our Religious Liberty Amendment.  But just this session, she supported legislation that would have provided $29 million in new monies for Planned Parenthood.  That is hardly the behavior of a “pro-Life” person – and certainly no one we need in Congress.

Former AG David Leroy does not have much of a record, but we are troubled by some of his answers to our questionnaire. He is not committed to ending federal funding of Planned Parenthood.  And his fealty to the federal judiciary – despite their gross abuse of power in legalizing abortion, imposing same-sex marriage and a host of other perversions of the Constitution –is of great concern.  Congress must accept its responsibility to check this out-of-control branch of government if the Republic is to survive.

And, finally, Michael Snyder. There is no doubt that he is strongly pro-Life.  He provided us with an outstanding questionnaire.  We’ve had meetings with him and it is clear that he has passion for ending the holocaust.  Yet we are troubled by the fact that we only met him once he became a candidate for Congress.  We are left wondering where he’s been for the last twenty-plus years that we have been battling the forces of darkness at the Statehouse and in the culture.  It is not enough to hold pro-Life convictions.  And it is not enough to be right.  There must be action and sacrifice if we are to ever bring this horror to an end in America.  Hopefully, once this race is over, we will be able to build a long and fruitful relationship with Mr. Snyder that strengthens the movement and saves lives.  We would certainly welcome his help and support.

Once More We Must Witness a Public Execution

April 25th, 2018

Many of you have probably been following the tragic story of baby Alfie Evans in England. He is a toddler whom the medical community and courts have determined must be killed, despite the heart-wrenching pleas of his parents for his life.

Doctors determined that this little boy would not recover from his condition. They determined that he was going to die.  So they told his parents that he should be removed from a ventilator and denied food and water.  In order that he be helped in dying faster.

The logic is truly inexplicable.

The parents fought for his life. They went to court and asked that they be allowed to take him to another hospital for treatment.  The courts – many courts – have upheld the right of the London hospital to play God.  No, said the UK High Court just yesterday, the parents cannot transport to a hospital in Italy or Germany.

The last report we read indicated that the hospital had yet to withdraw water from the little boy, but they have begun starving him.   They also withdrew him from a respirator, but the little Alfie continued to breathe for some 19 hours – defying predictions of hospital staff.

We have seen any number of such examples of growing arrogance within the legal and medical community. It is almost as if people like Alfie are being executed because they defy the medical oracles by continuing to live.  It is hard to accept that modern society is willing to tolerate such attacks on parental authority and human dignity.

But it is even harder to grasp why our institutions are so psychotically committed to ensuring that vulnerable people like Alfie die on their schedule. Why is it necessary to deprive the boy of food and water?  Can one imagine a more horrible method of death?  Can you imagine the ACLU standing by if death row prisoners were executed over the course of days through such a method?  Yet we stand around wringing our hands when the highest authorities of the land wreck such havoc upon the innocent.

It is truly more than barbaric. It is plain evil.

Trump Admin Continues to Push Defunding

April 8th, 2018

The new Department of Health & Human Services under Donald Trump is pressing to re-orient the “family planning” programs of the Department to bring them more in line with the values of the great majority in America.

Despite the fact that the Republican Congress maintained funding for Title X at Obama levels in this last omnibus travesty, they did put $10 million in new monies to expand the effort to bring “sexual risk avoidance education” (SRA) into public schools. This curriculum is science-based, with several studies demonstrating that it helps kids avoid behaviors which lead to poverty, regret and even tragedy.

Hopefully various key players in the Idaho Legislature will take note of the studies and moral clarity which is giving shape to a new agenda at the federal level. There are a surprising number of Republicans in the Statehouse who buy into the Planned Parenthood doctrine that the key to reducing abortion, teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock births is more money for birth control.  This is the thinking which drove the proposal to provide Planned Parenthood with a windfall of $29 million in new federal and state tax dollars (HB 563).

There was even a proposal by Rep. Van Orden to expand Planned Parenthood’s role in our public school’s sex education curriculum. (HB 579).

While we were able to defeat both pieces of legislation this last session – the truth is, those battles are not over. Various legislators have warned us they will be back.

And then there is the circulating petition to put Medicaid expansion on the ballot this fall. Included in that misguided proposal is a boatload of money for Planned Parenthood.

Insurance Reform Bill Becomes Law

April 2nd, 2018

An important health insurance bill passed the Legislature this session, but has received little attention from a distracted media.

Ever since Obama largely socialized the country’s health care system, various folks have been calling for increased competition as the solution to the mess he and Pelosi have created. Many Republicans have called for reforms to allow insurance carriers to sell policies across state lines.  But like much of the conservative agenda – Congress has failed to act.

But Idaho has. Sen. Dan Foreman and Rep. Tom Loertscher got legislation passed this year which will make it possible for out-of-state companies to compete with Blue Cross in Idaho.  (SB 1288). This is a market-based reform that could help lead to slower growth in premiums.

The long term impact will largely depend on who is elected governor this year, and who serves in the Department of Insurance next year. No doubt there will have to be an outreach effort to encourage companies to market their plans in Idaho and compete with the Blue Cross monopoly.

Evidence has surfaced that the insurance companies who survived thus far in the ObamaCare era are beginning to make serious profits, as are institutional health care providers. After all, the massive increase in government spending on health care has to be going to somewhere.  And the 200% increase in private family premiums aren’t hurting the bottom line for Blue Cross and St. Luke’s either.

We heartily commend Loertscher and Foreman for their leadership in getting this bill passed. America has a long and successful experience with free market solutions to social problems: Competition has brought Americans a tremendous quality of life.  It is obvious that that is the path out of this health care mess.  But few of our politicians appear willing to bring that grand solution to the policy table.

It Is Time to Hold Congress Accountable

March 27th, 2018

Many pro-Life leaders across the country bemoaned the recent Omnibus Spending bill enacted at the eleventh hour by Republicans in Congress to deal with yet one more “emergency”. The bill contained an appropriation to fund Planned Parenthood yet again.  And it failed to provide the conscience protections that congressional leaders had been dangling in front of pro-Life leaders for weeks as a kind of incentive to turn a blind eye to the on-going subsidies for the Abortion Industry.

So, here we are. Coming up fast on a year-and-a-half into the Trump presidency and Planned Parenthood is still raking in the taxpayer dough.  The GAO recently confirmed that this evil enterprise has received $1.5 billion in taxpayer money over the past three years.  This time next year it will be over $2 billion.

How is this possible? How does it continue – even though we have a president who has begged Congress to send him a defunding measure?

The key is the broken appropriation process.   For too long, pro-Life leaders and groups have given members of Congress a pass when they vote for these band-aid funding measures.  We have looked the other way on funding bills that contain funding for Planned Parenthood and have not held members accountable.  We have accepted the argument that it is no one’s fault; that these things must happen because the Democrats will shut down the government and hold pro-Life conservatives responsible.

If we want to end taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood, we must start scoring these funding bills and counting a vote for legislation like this Omnibus Bill as an anti-Life vote. Period.

So let us begin. Senators Risch and Crapo voted against this monstrosity.  Congressman Labrador voted against this on-going subsidy for Planned Parenthood and the rest of the waste contained therein.  But Idaho’s 2nd District Congressman, Mike Simpson, supported it.  We at Idaho Chooses Life count that as an anti-Life vote.

And we urge our friends at National Right to Life to do the same.

Good for Jim Risch

March 25th, 2018

The national and local media is in an uproar over the fact that Sen. Jim Risch objected to putting Cecil Andrus’ name on one of the most iconic natural wonders in Idaho. They can’t believe that anyone could possibly object to honoring the most notable Idaho Democrat of the last generation.

Well we do. And we applaud Sen. Risch’s actions.

We remember Cecil Andrus not for his brilliant and sometimes ruthless political style. We remember him most for his veto of HB 625 – legislation that would have outlawed most abortions in the State of Idaho.  And we remember that it was through that battle in 1990, Andrus led the transformation of the Idaho Democrat Party from one in which a majority of officeholders were publicly pro-Life to an organization committed wholesale to the Abortion Industry’s agenda.

The thoroughness of Andrus’ re-education camp can be witnessed by the simple fact that it has been well over fifteen years since we have gained a single Democrat vote in the Legislature on any abortion legislation. Not one.  Not a single Democrat legislator supported Parental Consent.  Or Informed Consent.  Or our most recent effort – compiling data on the complications women suffer after choosing an abortion.  It is a rather appalling record for an organization which claims to stand for women.

Oh – and let’s not forget that Governor Andrus also engineered the repeal of Idaho’s “Trigger Law” – which would have restored protections for preborn children in the event of a reversal of Roe v. Wade.

It is a travesty that Cecil Andrus’ name should be emblazoned on Idaho’s White Cloud Mountains.

Governor Signs Reporting Bill Into Law

March 22nd, 2018

Governor Otter signed HB 638 into law today, creating the first comprehensive reporting system on abortion complications in Idaho history. We believe this is landmark legislation because, in coming years, we will be able to learn how abortion affects women and girls in both the short-term and long-term.  For the first time we will not be dependent upon Planned Parenthood or the FDA to tell us what they want us to hear.

Every doctor, hospital, counselor in Idaho will now be required to file a report with the Department of Health & Welfare when they treat a woman or girl for a health problem associated with undergoing an abortion. That is going to be a tremendous help in setting health policy in the future, in battling Planned Parenthood in the courts – and in persuading women to reconsider a decision to submit to an abortion in the first place.

We know that Otter withstood an intense lobbying effort by numerous actors to veto the legislation.

It is our understanding that Lt. Governor Brad Little spoke with the Governor this morning, urging his support for the bill. A number of others supported our efforts with the Governor’s office – including Rep. Gayann DeMordaunt, Sen. Bob Nonini, Rep. Tom Loertscher and Sen. Tony Potts.  And then there are all the fantastic pro-Life folks out there who took the time to call and ask for the Governor’s support of this critical legislation.

It takes a lot of folks to make a victory like this possible. And it takes the Lord’s kindness and blessing, without whom we could do nothing.

There are many reasons to be joyful in thanksgiving over this victory. But here is an important one: The Governor has completed his time in office with a perfect pro-Life record.  He has finished the race and will leave behind him a tremendous pro-Life legacy.  We predict his stellar pro-Life record will be his greatest, long-term contribution to the well-being of Idaho and its citizens.  There is no doubt that Butch Otter has helped save lives that would otherwise have been wasted through abortion – and that number will continue to increase long after he leaves office.

Our heartfelt thanks go out to the lead sponsors of this legislation as well: Rep. Greg Chaney and Sen. Fred Martin have poured their hearts into this fight. And a fight it has been.  May the Lord bless these men for their kindness and courage in leading this battle.

Governor Signs APR Bill Into Law

March 20th, 2018

Governor Butch Otter signed SB 1243 into law today. This legislation adds to the existing Informed Consent Law by requiring information be delivered to women about the possibility of reversing a chemical abortion.

A chemical abortion, using the drug regimen commonly known as RU-486, involves taking two pills. The first kills the baby by depriving it of oxygen and nutrition.  Several days after the first pill, the woman is instructed to take the second drug, which induces labor.  The dead baby is then expelled.

The APR protocol has been proven effective at saving the baby’s life if the woman is treated soon after taking the first pill. Hormones are used to overpower the effects of the first pill.  This is essentially the process used to help women at high risk of miscarriage.

SB 1243 was brought forward by Right to Life and sponsored in the Senate by Meridian’s Lori Den Hartog. The House sponsor was Rep. Gayann DeMordaunt.  We publicly thank these strong women for their leadership and hard work on this bill.

All Democrats opposed the legislation as it moved through the Statehouse. And that is a rather strange thing for a political party which preaches the mantra of “choice” and “women’s rights”.  Why would they not support legislation which lets a woman know there is a choice available if she changes her mind once the chemical abortion procedure begins?

If you’d like to know more about the APR protocol, follow this link.

And here is a link to the story on LifeNews.com.

And thank you, Governor Otter for signing this legislation.

Senate Approves Reporting Bill

March 16th, 2018

The Idaho Senate gave final approval to ICL’s Reporting bill (HB 638) last Wednesday afternoon. This landmark bill will create – for the first time – a comprehensive reporting system on the physical and emotional after-shocks of abortion.  The bill requires every doctor, counselor or hospital that treats a woman for post-abortion complications to report that fact to the Department of Health & Welfare.  The Department is then required to compile and publish an annual report.

Based upon model legislation developed by Americans United for Life, HB 638 will give Idaho policy makers – for the first time – an accurate understanding of what women go through after they choose abortion. It is rather shocking to realize that, some 45 years into the Roe v. Wade era – virtually everything we think we know about abortion and its impact on women comes from the abortion industry. Not exactly an unbiased source.

photo of sponsors HB 638

Photo: Following Approval of HB 638 by Senate State Affairs Committee earlier this week.
From L-R: Julie Lynde, ICL Ex Director David Ripley, Rep. Greg Chaney, Karey Uhlenkott, Sen. Fred Martin

 

The Senate floor debate was hot and heavy. Sadly, a number of normally pro-Life legislators voted against the bill.  Senate sponsor Fred Martin (R-Boise) valiantly weathered some 3 hours of questions and debate over the legislation.  We are grateful for his courage and leadership in defending a great piece of legislation.

Emmett’s Steven Thayn raised concerns about the burden on doctors and the fact that paperwork is helping to drive up health care costs. He claimed that he might like to support the legislation, but that HB 638 “went too far”.  By that, he meant that the reporting requirements in the bill do not have a time limit.  He was one of eight Republican senators who sided with Planned Parenthood by voting ‘no’.  It was a heartbreaking moment.

Apparently Senator Thayn is willing to learn a little about the health risks of abortion – but not too much. Unfortunately for women, many of the health risks associated with abortion don’t materialize for years.  The research linking abortion to breast cancer, for example, shows us that breast cancer may take many years to develop.  And even more mid-term problems can take several years: An overwhelming body of scientific research suggests that an abortion history can complicate future pregnancies.  Why would we not want that hard data?  Don’t women deserve to know both the short and long term risks they assume when accept the seductive promises of Planned Parenthood?

Thankfully, there were heroes during the floor fight over this legislation as well: Sen. Chuck Winder, Sen. Jim Rice, Sen. Dan Foreman, Sen. Mary Souza and Sen. Marv Hagedorn. They rose to help Sen. Martin, and to support the bill with a clear vision of why it will be such a critical step forward for Idaho’s women and the fight for Life.

For years we have fought to establish an Informed Consent procedure in Idaho. We have fought to create a booklet that women are given before an abortion; we have established a waiting period.  This springs from the State’s primary duty to protect the health and safety of its citizens.  But the glaring problem is that we know so little about the real world risks of abortion.  So much of the debate is politically charged.  The State has a clear duty to find out the health care risks associated with abortion  – especially now that we are one of only two states allowing “remote control” abortions via the internet.

Please join us in thanking those legislators who supported this vitally important bill. And please take a moment to ask Governor Otter to sign this legislation.  You can leave him a message by phoning 208-334-2100.