Commentary

Democrats are working hard to repackage Sen. Kamala Harris as a pleasant, moderate woman who just wants to serve America.  That will be no small task.

Sen. Harris has a dark and nasty history that betrays a radical vision for America.  She was, for example, a leader in the effort to smear Justice Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings.

But what troubles us most is the intimate relationship Harris has with Planned Parenthood.  Prior to entering the U.S. Senate, Harris served as Attorney General of California. She was that state’s senior legal officer when the horrific scandal of Planned Parenthood baby-parts trafficking became public.

Remember that video of an abortionist munching salad while negotiating the prices and procedures for acquiring organs harvested from babies?  Or the one where the abortionist wanted a Lamborghini from her partnership with the ghouls conducting medical research on the bodies of helpless babies?  Yeah … THAT scandal.

So one might think that a decent person, with large legal authority, would move to stamp out such barbarous and unethical behavior.  And one would be right.  If Kamala Harris was a decent person with a respect for the basic moral norms of Western Civilization.  But the fact is, AG Harris did not move to shut down these illegal operations.  Instead, she used the full force of her office to defend Planned Parenthood and to hunt down the pro-Life activists who had the audacity to expose America’s largest abortion provider.

Harris used her powers to suppress the public release of additional undercover videos.  She then sent no fewer than eleven armed agents of the California Department of Justice to raid the apartment of David Daleiden.  They confiscated his computer and all his video equipment.  She then charged Daleiden and several others with a string of felony charges – charges which they are still fighting.

Largely because of Sen. Kamala Harris, the notorious practice of harvesting body parts and organs from babies killed in abortion continues unabated; a practice reminiscent of the evil “medical research” Nazi doctors conducted upon prisoners.  Planned Parenthood has walked away, largely undamaged by its ghoulish side business.  The brave souls who exposed this evil?  They suffer ongoing persecution and prosecution in federal and state courts. 

That is the America that Harris seeks to impose on our future.  Where black is white, right is wrong … and babies are slaughtered for profit.  May God spare us.

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 2^nd 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.

Legislation (SB1243) to expand Idaho’s Informed Consent Law had a formal hearing before the Senate State Affairs Committee on Monday morning. The Abortion Lobby showed up in force to urge the measure’s defeat.  One would have thought that Sen. Lori Den Hartog and the Pro-Life Lobby was about to repeal Roe v. Wade.

Instead, the modest legislation would require the State of Idaho to include information about the possibility that women and girls might be able to reverse the effects of RU-486 if they move quickly enough. It would become part of the State’s Informed Consent booklet, which the Abortion Industry must provide to each woman during the 24-hour waiting period.

But somehow this proposal to inform girls about their options is “anti-woman” and an “abuse of government power”. This may strike more casual followers of the abortion debate as rather strange and illogical.  But it is part and parcel of the battle.

Planned Parenthood and their fellow-travelers have opposed every single piece of legislation related to informed consent for twenty years. They do not want women to know that there are options.  They do not want women to know that there are risks.  They do not want women to get the phone numbers of adoption agencies or pro-Life centers which can help them deal with a difficult pregnancy.  Yet, somehow, the media continues to refer to them as the “pro-choice” crowd, the “pro-woman” movement.

The truth is, there is no more paternalistic and condescending crowd than the Abortion Lobby.

Monday’s show was stolen, however, by a remarkable young mother named Rebecca. She told committee members of her own experience with the Abortion Pill Reversal process.  At the age of 19, she became pregnant for the second time while in an abusive relationship.  She turned to Planned Parenthood because she was convinced that her only option was ending the baby’s life by using RU-486.  After taking the first pill in the Planned Parenthood office, she left with the second pill in a bag.  She began crying as she sat in her car, suddenly panicked over what she had done.  She began searching the internet on her phone, desperately seeking any advice or information about whether she could do anything to stop the abortion.  And she ran across a website telling her that there were doctors who had developed a protocol for overcoming the effects of the first pill if a mother moved quickly enough.

Rebecca found a doctor to help. And she experienced the miracle of motherhood again.  In fact, she brought her son Zechariah to the hearing – who spent most of the three hours sleeping in his mother’s arms.  He is a beautiful 3 or 4 year old boy.

Yet the Abortion Lobby was not to be deterred. Despite the fact that living, breathing evidence sat in the front row of the hearing room – speaker after speaker told committee members that there was no science to back up the APR protocol, that it was not possible to reverse a chemical abortion once it had begun.  It was just astounding to see the triumph of ideology over fact for so many followers of Planned Parenthood.  They have some powerful Kool-Aid over on that side of the room, apparently.

SB 1243 was approved by the Senate committee on a party-line vote and is now pending on the Senate floor.

We commend Sen. Lori Den Hartog and Right to Life of Idaho for bringing the legislation, which we strongly support.

We also want to give thanks for the courage displayed by Rebecca.  May the Lord watch over her and bless her children.

Please take a moment to call or email your legislators about this important bill. Hopefully this proposal will lead to more miracle stories in the years to come.

A couple of years ago, the nation was confronted with the barbaric nature of the Abortion Industry when the Center for Medical Progress publicized a series of videos demonstrating a huge black market in aborted baby parts. At the center of that trafficking-scheme-for-profit stands Planned Parenthood.

While the nation’s largest abortion chain has yet to be held accountable, prosecutors in California (of all places) have secured the first guilty plea from two of Planned Parenthood’s crime partners – DV Biologics and DaVinci Biosciences. The firms have agreed to pay some $7.8 million in fines and penalties.  In addition, they have agreed to close their businesses. Permanently.

The prosecution by the Orange County District Attorney came after a formal referral by the Congressional Selective Investigative Panel on Infant Lives – headed by Congressman Marsha Blackburn.

This is real progress and puts real pressure on the nefarious Planned Parenthood abortion syndicate going forward.

However, according to reports by our colleagues at Operation Rescue, this development has even greater scandal: The owners of the two companies in question happen to be close associates of Hillary Clinton.  It turns out that both companies are owned by members of the Isaias family – Estefano, Andres and Roberto.

Apparently these folks absconded with millions of dollars in stolen money from a bank they ran in Ecuador. They face criminal indictments in their native country.  The Ecuadorian government claims that this crime family has bankrupted many citizens of this poor Central American country, and cost the Ecuador economy something approaching $660 million.

While Clinton was Secretary of State, the Ecuador government sought the extradition of the Isaias Family to face justice. But because of generous contributions to a slew of Democrat politicians in America, Clinton moved to deny the request.

“Hillary Clinton allowed a known crime family into the United States so they could sell Planned Parenthood’s aborted baby parts for profit,” said OR President Troy Newman. “This connects Clinton to the illegal baby parts trade, in addition to improperly giving special favors to criminals in return for financial donations.  The FBI should include her in their ongoing investigation.”

The potential corruption here is nearly unbelievable. We will report on further developments as we discover them.

Here is a link to the Operation Rescue report.

State Attorneys General in a dozen states recently filed a “Friend of the Court” brief in a lawsuit being brought by Planned Parenthood against the state of North Carolina.

That southern state has had a 20-week ban in place since Roe v. Wade was handed down. But it amended the law a couple of years ago to tighten the exemptions under which late term abortions may be permissible.  The amendment allows abortions after 20 weeks only when the mother’s life is threatened or a continued pregnancy would likely result in a serious physical impairment of the mother.

Planned Parenthood claims that those tighter restrictions violate its constitutional rights, as well as the constitutional rights of its future, potential clients.

Among the many bizarre aspects of abortion law is the wide latitude federal judges have granted Planned Parenthood to bring civil lawsuits. Generally speaking, a person must demonstrate at least probable harm in order to have standing in a federal lawsuit.  Yet Planned Parenthood is regularly allowed to challenge laws on the basis that they represent hypothetical people who may never actually seek an abortion.  Even more bizarre is that conflation of an individual woman’s purported constitutional right to an abortion with claims by Planned Parenthood that it has, somehow, acquired those same constitutional “rights”.

It is that kind of legal slop which is tolerated and essential to Planned Parenthood’s tyranny of the federal court system.

The 12 states rising to help defend North Carolina and preborn children across the nation are: West Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas. We note, with real disappointment, that Idaho’s Lawrence Wasden is not among the list.

The lawsuit is pending in a North Carolina federal district court.

The Senate approved SJR13 this week, repealing rules Obama pushed through before leaving office. His actions were designed to handcuff state legislators from eliminating funding of Planned Parenthood.  This finalizes congressional action on striking down the HHS rule, and the measure goes to President Trump.

All Democrats and 2 Republicans locked arms to protect the nation’s largest abortion chain – even as new videos surfaced this week of their barbarous treatment of preborn children. The close vote required Vice President Pence to break the tie.

Idaho’s two senators, Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, both voted to overturn the rule.

This measure is a vital step in dissolving the sordid partnership between Planned Parenthood and America’s taxpayers – but it is not the big one.

The Congressional measure to defund Planned Parenthood is wrapped up in the whole ObamaCare repeal fiasco still percolating in Washington. Republican leaders had planned to use the Reconciliation process to cut Planned Parenthood funding.  We can only pray that Republicans come together to get legislation to the president’s desk.

In the meantime, we can be grateful for this important step forward.

UDPATE:

After posting, we ran across a side story on this important vote.  Turns out there is an unsung hero in this historic battle: Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson.  He managed to make the Senate vote while recovering from two different back surgeries in recent weeks.  He has been unable to cast a vote since February 17th, but made a courageous appearance on the Senate floor, using a walker, to cast the 50th vote.  This allowed the Vice President to break the tie.  Lord bless him.

The startling news that the FBI has reopened its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s “Email Scandal” just days before the presidential election is only the latest evidence of the rampant corruption which follows Bill and Hillary Clinton like Pig-Pen’s cloud of dirt. Any American older than about 40 has spent a lifetime reading and hearing about the sordid private lives and financial schemes of the Clinton Crime Family.

That corruption is rooted, we believe, in the deepening evil that Hillary has embraced over her public career in the form of legalized abortion. Back in the days when she was only the First Lady, Hillary still carried a sense that abortion was not a good option for women.  While she defended the “need” for legal abortions, Mrs. Clinton always made a point that it should be rare; that it was regrettable.

But the Hillary campaigning for the presidency today no longer has any sense of shame or regret over abortion. Now she openly demands that abortion be celebrated.  She insists that those Christian denominations which still believe God and His Holy Writ need to be “reformed” and even undermined by Democrat political operatives.  The Hillary walking into the Oval Office will not only insist that abortion on demand is legal – but that it be free to women and girls here and abroad.  And she brazenly lifts up Planned Parenthood as an “heroic” organization, entitled to unlimited taxpayer support.

When you can casually justify the slaughter of millions, what is a little graft? When you can publicly embrace Planned Parenthood as “heroic” – what is a lot of lying?  Her moral descent is painfully obvious.

Locally, it is well past time for Idaho Republicans like Mike Kingsley (Lewiston) and Rep. Lynn Luker (Boise) to go on offense: They need to confront their Democrat opponents with the horrifying list of Clinton’s crimes. They need to ask Rep. Rusche and Steve Berch whether they still support their Democrat nominee.  The voters in those swing districts have a right to know.

On a broader front, it seems clear that no justice will come from Washington, D.C.   The Clinton Crime Family can only be put out of business by the American people.  We must insist upon a basic standard of integrity and at least some measure of virtue in our elected officials.

UPDATE:

Apparently our sense that there are disturbing similarities between the Gambino and Clinton Families is a view shared by others.  On Sunday, former FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom made the following statement during a national radio interview:

“The Clintons, that’s a crime family.  It’s like organized crime, basically.  The Clinton Foundation is a cesspool.  It’s just outrageous how Hillary Clinton sold her office for money.  And she’s a pathological liar, and she’s always been a liar.  And God forbid if we put someone like that in the White House.”

Planned Parenthood – the Abortion Industry’s largest producer – celebrated its dark 100 year history this past weekend. Democrat Hillary Clinton joined in the festivities by posting five separate Tweets praising the organization for its defense of “autonomy” and attacking Donald Trump.  She expressed “pride” in what the abortion empire has accomplished over the past century.

Okay … let’s survey their handiwork.

Rachel Stoltzfoos over at the Daily Caller wrote an excellent piece summarizing the destruction Planned Parenthood has accomplished.

The semi-official death toll from Planned Parenthood is well over 7 million defenseless human babies. The annual carnage has now hit about 328,000 babies killed at some 650 abortuaries spread through every state of this Union.  But the death toll only scratches the surface of the moral, social, spiritual havoc that Planned Parenthood has wrought.  The cost to mothers and fathers, the damage to our legal system are but a couple of the accounts most difficult to measure.

Over the last decade, Planned Parenthood’s legitimate health care services have declined dramatically, while abortions have climbed. For example, they claimed some 2 million cancer screenings in 2006.  By 2013, that number had declined to 900,000.  At the same time, the annual killings have climbed from 289,000 to that staggering figure of 328,000.  Yet they continue to enjoy funding from Congress and protection from leading Democrats like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Of course, Hillary Clinton has every reason to praise Planned Parenthood: It is spending some $30 million to help elect her to the presidency.

The Daily Caller also notes that this purportedly “non-profit health organization” has pumped more than $50 million into congressional campaigns since 1990. These massive political bribes have been used to build an unparalleled empire aimed at fulfilling Margaret Sanger’s racist, eugenics vision.

There can be no doubt that this presidential contest presents American voters with a fundamental choice. The defeat of Hillary Clinton must be a priority for every single Christian, pro-Life voter.  We must commit ourselves now to earnest prayer, asking the Almighty to pierce the veil of darkness with which Planned Parenthood and its media allies are trying to cloak this election.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump issued a public letter to the nation’s pro-Life community this past week, affirming his pro-Life values and expressing his determination to advance the Life agenda.

In his letter, Trump restated his commitment to four specific policy agenda items:

1. Nominating pro-Life judges to the Supreme Court of the United States;
2. Signing into law the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would essentially make abortions after 20 weeks illegal in the United States;
3. He would seek to defund Planned Parenthood so long as it performed abortions. Instead, he would re-direct the hundreds of millions in tax dollars to legitimate women’s health care providers; and
4. Trump would ask Congress to make the Hyde Amendment a permanent part of the federal code. This long-standing provision is usually attached as rider language to appropriation bills and restricts the use of federal monies to pay for elective abortions.

There is no question that these four action items represent a formidable pro-Life agenda for a new president’s first term. But even that awareness fails to capture the true stakes in November for America’s preborn children.

The Democrat nominee, Hillary Clinton, is a long way past the time when she declared that abortion should be rare in the United States. During her last run for the nomination, it became crystal clear that she is as rabid a supporter of Planned Parenthood’s agenda as any member of its Board.  Clinton has publicly declared her support for tax-funded abortions and is committed to nominating the most rabid abortion-supporting lawyers to all levels of the federal bench.

Thus, we must appreciate not only what Donald Trump might accomplish as president, but what he will be able to prevent should he defeat Clinton and Planned Parenthood in November.

It is time to be in serious prayer for the outcome of the national election.

Delegates to United Methodist Church recently voted to repeal its official support of the Roe v. Wade decision inflicted upon the nation in 1973. In a related matter, the Protestant denomination also voted to end its association with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice – one of the most insidious front groups for Planned Parenthood in its mission to kill preborn children.

What makes this news even more encouraging is the fact that the United Methodist Church was an original co-founder of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. And there can be no doubt that this is a huge blow to Planned Parenthood.

The United Methodist Church claims some 12 million members in America and approximately 80 million around the world.

It is not clear from press reports how far the reform movement will go, or whether the group will actually move to a Gospel-inspired pro-Life position.

Some analysts credit the developments to the strong Christian orthodoxy of the denomination’s African membership.

But we know that the real mover is the Holy Spirit.