Commentary

The 62nd Idaho Legislature adjourned yesterday, clearly in a rush to return home to begin their campaigns for re-election. The Primary Election is less than ten weeks away.

We are pained to report that this Legislature made absolutely no progress in protecting Idaho’s preborn children from the scourge of abortion. In fact, we probably went backwards over the past two years. There is simply no good spin to put on the matter.

We worked long and hard this session to get legislation enacted that would govern the use of RU-486 in order to protect the health and lives of women and girls using the dangerous pills. At the end of the day, we were unable to get a hearing in the Senate State Affairs Committee for our legislation. Part of that result can fairly be blamed on the pro-Life community itself: We had a very difficult time resolving serious disagreements over the profound question of how Idaho should treat cases of self-abortions. Yet agreement on language was finalized on February 27th, three weeks before the Legislature’s expedited adjournment.

We were then told that there was “insufficient time” to move an abortion bill.

It was a painful and frustrating message. We have seen many times the Legislature move quickly on issues it cares about. In fact, on the last day for a possible committee hearing, the State Affairs Committee took up the pressing matter of raising salaries for constitutional officers. And you can sure that that legislation was moved through the process before they quit.

There were heroes in this session: Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll, Sen. Steve Vick, Sen. Bart Davis, Rep. Judy Boyle and Rep. Tom Loertscher devoted many hours to studying the issues involved in regulating the use of RU-486 and offering assistance in negotiating the differences between pro-Life groups.

But their leadership and energy was insufficient to overcome this Legislature’s inertia.

This lack of action carries potentially serious consequences. As we will discuss in future postings, the Legislature has yet to respond to several devastating rulings by federal Judge Lynn Winmill – rulings which have cut a huge hole in numerous parts of Idaho’s Abortion Code.  Those rulings are now some three years old.

The failure to rise in defense of preborn children this year is particularly upsetting given last year’s defeats. As you will recall, the Legislature was determined to partner up with the President in imposing ObamaCare upon the people of Idaho. They then rejected our call for a Religious Liberty Amendment to that legislation which would serve to protect Christian employers from being forced to purchase insurance plans which cover abortion-causing drugs like Plan B and Ella.

Making matters even worse, the Idaho Senate failed to approve modest legislation last year which would have given the state’s pro-Life pregnancy centers support and encouragement by exempting them from the state sales tax – a measure which might have cost $10,000 a year. Good grief.

Time is short and the pro-Life community in Idaho must rally if we hope to move forward on protecting babies and their mothers in the years ahead. Our opportunity to elect a more compassionate Legislature is just weeks away.

Ohio abortionist Martin Haskell, the creator of the partial birth abortion method of killing preborn children, is under assault by Operation Rescue for his violation of a recently-enacted law. Defiance might be a better word.

The Ohio Legislature passed a statute requiring all abortionists working in the state to have a transfer agreement with a proximate hospital in cases of an emergency. Haskell refuses to do that, despite being ordered to do so by the Ohio Department of Health. According to a recent email from Operation Rescue, a court has stayed the Department’s order.

Meanwhile, another woman has suffered a botched abortion at Haskell’s hands. Operation Rescue reports a 911 call from Haskell in which he apparently laughs while talking with the operator.

We must ever remember that there is genuine evil at work in the abortion industry. The systematic destruction of human beings in the name of “liberation” threatens our collective humanity. That does not mean that every person working in the industry, or certainly every person affected by the industry, is “evil”. But make no mistake about the powerful, corrosive poison being pumped into our society through the work of people like Martin Haskell.

As Idaho comes to grips with the increasing number of chemical abortions, the public should be educated about the dark roots of RU-486.

The brand name of misoprostol, RU-486, comes from the French company which invented the deadly drug, Rousel Uclaf. That company is a subsidiary of the German conglomerate, Hoechst AG.

Turns out, this German company has a great deal of experience with the business of waging chemical war against the human race. Up through World War II, this company was known as I.G. Farben, one of the most dominant of German corporations. It was to this firm that Hitler turned for a solution to the problem of quickly and cheaply exterminating massive numbers of Jews and other undesirable peoples.

Their solution was Zyklon B.

A dozen executives were later convicted at Nuremburg of war crimes for their roles in helping Hitler wage war against the human race.

Can it possibly be an accident that this firm’s evil influence continues to be exercised upon humanity?

If you’d like to learn more, see the article on the subject now posted on LifeNews.

So much of the abortion business is hidden behind the dark veil of “privacy”. But every once in awhile, the truth bleeds out.

LifeSite is carrying an interview with a nurse who has gone public with her personal journey through the murder factories which is Planned Parenthood. Marianne Anderson assisted with abortions for two years at an abortuary in Indiana. One of her functions was to administer sedatives to women and girls who paid extra for that consideration.

She recounts sex slaves being driven through the abortion clinic by their “owners” and forced into abortions. Teenage girls being pressured into abortion by mothers.

Anderson says that if girls started to cry during the “procedure”, abortionist Michael King would bark at them, “Now you chose to be here. Sit still. I don’t have time for this.”

She tells of another abortionist who would talk aloud to the various baby parts he was responsible for accounting after the killing was done: “Come on, little arm, I know you’re here! Stop hiding from me.”

“The sound the suction machine made when it turned on still haunts me,” she told LifeSite News.

Her story forces us to not only confront the emotional and physical terror faced by women and girls in submitting to an abortion, but it reminds us of the terrible toll this business must take on the people who deal destruction for a paycheck day after day. Clearly some of these people are emotionally imbalanced. Others are deeply wounded by the work they do. Many, no doubt, would like to escape and practice actual life-affirming medicine.

May the Lord of Heaven take pity on them.

A recent scientific study demonstrates the mercy and grandeur of God’s design.

Apparently the cells from a preborn child are shared with the mother during pregnancy. Researchers found that two types of cells were transferred to the mom – immune cells and mesenchymal cells.

The latter are thought to be special cells that help in the regeneration and healing of adult tissue.

This seems to be a concrete example of God’s blessed promise:

“I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life so that you and your children may live ….” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Idaho’s two congressmen, Raul Labrador and Mike Simpson, voted with the majority yesterday to end Obama’s secret subsidy of elective abortions under his health care scheme. HR 7 passed by a vote of 227 to 188. 187 Democrats and one Republican opposed the measure to strictly prohibit any taxpayer funding of elective abortions under ObamaCare.

The legislation is a post-hoc fix which became necessary when the Democratic majority in the Senate, along with President Obama, opposed amendments to ObamaCare which would strictly apply the Hyde Amendment to ObamaCare.

According to LifeNews, the Kaiser Foundation recently published a report estimating that over 6 million abortions will be paid for through Medicaid expansion and federal premium subsidies under ObamaCare.

This is in addition to the serious problem of “contraceptive” coverage already discussed by Idaho Chooses Life in a press release last week. Information came to light last fall confirming that Idaho’s Insurance Exchange is selling insurance plans which provide abortion-causing drugs like Ella and the “Morning After Pill”. As pointed out by several pro-Life organizations, this seems to violate Idaho law. Our news release has gone largely unnoticed by the state’s media, and we are unaware of any Idaho politician being forced to comment on the disturbing revelation.

The actions by Idaho’s Congressmen to end publicly-financed abortions will probably remain symbolic, however, since the legislation is expected to die a quiet death in the U.S. Senate.

LifeNews reports that hundreds of thousands of Americans gathered together in Washington DC yesterday to protest abortion and its terrible toll on the nation. The most conservative estimate is that over 56 million babies have been destroyed in the forty-one years of the Roe travesty.

Meanwhile, our president issued a press statement celebrating the fruits of legalized abortion, declaring that the mechanized murder of defenseless children had somehow “liberated” America and allowed many to fulfill their dreams. How bizarre, how dark.

Idaho pro-Lifers will gather this Saturday at the State Capitol. The March for Life begins at 1 pm at Julia Davis Park with a rally to follow on the Capitol steps. Hope to see you there!

Has it really come to this? A duly elected governor of one of the most populous and powerful states in the Union actually believes that citizens who don’t agree with his liberalism should vacate his kingdom?

Governor Andrew Cuomo, raised at the knee of his father as a prince owed the inheritance of power, money and influence, announced on the radio last week that pro-Life New Yorkers should simply leave his state. They are not wanted; perhaps soon they won’t even be tolerated.

Of course the pro-Life community in New York was not the only group of citizens smeared as “extremist”. Cuomo finds gun rights advocates, limited government activists and most Christians very difficult to tolerate and has invited them to simply leave his realm.

We are living in days when the outrage bucket is sloppy-full: It is getting hard to work up much emotion for the latest abuse of the common man by our political elite. Yet we must resist the temptation to look the other way. This Cuomo statement betrays a contempt for the average citizen which is downright scary. To put it in some kind of context: Remember those history classes when we learned the founding principles? Remember the story about a nation founded by throwing off the shackles of a corrupt English nobility who were entitled by birth to rule over a rabble? Or the idea that the citizens of this nation were sovereign?

Or what about the funny notion that these guys worked for us?

History has shown us many faces of the tyrant, though not many examples come to mind in the American experience. Cuomo’s public statements seem unique, if only for their breathtaking honesty and arrogance. We pray our fellow citizens in New York rise up to reject Cuomo’s monarchial ambitions.

NEWS RELEASE
Contact:
• Julie Lynde: Executive Director Cornerstone Family Council Idaho (208)-954-3222
• Brandi Swindell Founder/CEO Stanton Health Care (208)-867-1307
• David Ripley, Executive Director, Idaho Chooses Life (208)-344-8709
• Jason Herring, President Right to Life of Idaho (208)- 869-3335
• Kerry Uhlenkott, Legislative Coordinator Right to Life Idaho (208)-983-7275

Pro-life leaders call for Governor Otter and the Idaho Legislature to ban the abortion drug ELLA from state health exchanges.

In an e-mail dated November 7, 2013, Governor Otter’s office confirmed to Idaho’s Pro-Life Community that chemical abortion is available through health insurance plans sold by Idaho’s state based health exchange. Idaho’s plans DO include coverage for the abortion inducing drug, ELLA.

Idahoans are now forced to comply with Obamacare’s HHS mandates issued by executive Kathleen Sebelius.

ELLA is chemically and functionally similar to Mifepristone (RU-486), the FDA approved abortion drug. They share identical modes of action. They share serious, substantial safety concerns for women’s health.
Early in 2013, the architects and proponents of Idaho’s state based exchange were aware that Idaho taxpayers would be forced to pay for this abortion inducing drug. Many even rejected a pro-life bill to protect Idahoan’s freedom of conscience and reclaim some state sovereignty in the state health exchange. This would have protected citizens from being coerced to foot the bill for the morally objectionable process of abortion.
We were told that the state exchange would give us a seat at HHS table. Ms. Sebellius apparently demands that Idaho be seen and not heard.

Women deserve to know that a prescription drug could cause an abortion. Women deserve to know that ELLA could cause serious complications for their health. Pharmacists have an ethical right to know that ELLA may cause an abortion. And they deserve to know that drugs like ELLA have serious, documented health risks; including blood transfusion and death.

Taxpayers have a right to be free from being coerced to pay for actions that violate their conscience.

Brandi Swindell, President and Founder of Stanton Healthcare a life-affirming medical clinic, states:

“It is extremely troubling that the citizens of Idaho will be forced to pay for abortion-inducing drugs through the state’s health exchanges. Governor Otter’s office has confirmed that the drug ELLA will be included in the exchanges. ELLA is an abortifaciant, which destroys an innocent life.  The citizens and especially the women of Idaho deserve better than having to violate their consciences, core beliefs and faith values by having to pay for abortion inducing drugs. We agree with the overwhelming majority of Americans that abortion is not health care and shouldn’t be included in any coverage.”

Julie Lynde, Executive Director of Cornerstone Family Council said:

“Offering ELLA in the state health exchange is contrary to Idaho’s stated commitment preferring live birth over abortion. It is contrary to who we are in Idaho.  Forcing Idahoans to become financially complicit in something they find morally repugnant is despicable. ELLA is the chemical cousin of RU-486 & has serious safety risks for women. HHS is keeping Idaho women in the dark and endangering their health to promote the abortion industry’s radical agenda.  Idaho leaders must stand up for Idaho citizens and stand against the HHS political ideology that is trampling the great state of Idaho.”

Kerry Uhlenkott, Legislative Coordinator Right to Life of Idaho said, “The emergency contraceptive, ELLA , is an abortifacient because it can prevent the implantation of a newly-conceived embryo. Even Dr. James Trussell, a member of Planned Parenthood’s national Medical committee and one of the leading authorities on emergency contraception, has said that doctors have a duty to inform women that emergency contraception could prevent a newly conceived embryo from implanting in the womb, causing an abortion. *

Since the emergency contraceptive, ELLA, has the potential for causing the death of a newly conceived human child, it is dead wrong for citizens in Idaho to be forced to violate their conscience by having to pay for this
abortion-inducing drug.”

David Ripley, Executive Director of Idaho Chooses Life said:

“The confirmation of Idaho’s insurance exchange being involved in funding abortion-causing drugs is very disturbing, and would seem to violate Idaho Law. This is why we pushed so hard last year for the Religious Liberty Amendment (to the state exchange) It’s impossible for Idaho to partner with ObamaCare without becoming enmeshed in President Obama’s agenda to expand both abortion and tax-funded support of the Abortion Industry.
The Legislature must revisit the question of protecting Idaho citizens. They have no business helping Obama trample our First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty.”

Jason Herring, Pastor and President of Right to Life Idaho said:

“The citizens of Idaho need to be aware of the fact that Ella is a potential abortifacient. By the FDA’s own admission Ella can disrupt a pregnancy after ovulation has occurred. If we hold that life begins at conception then
we must protect life at all stages of development.

At four weeks into the pregnancy a child is the size of a poppy seed. That’s incredibly small, and yet at one time we were all that size with a world of potential and possibilities awaiting us. If faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains, then microscopic faith the size of a human cell is all it takes to respect life in its beginning.”

In response to this, we…the united pro-life community in Idaho…. call upon Governor Otter and the Idaho legislature to embrace quality health care, respect the taxpayers of Idaho, protect and respect the women of Idaho, and protect innocent human life by banning ELLA from all state health exchanges.

*Life Site News: WORLD’S TOP AUTHORITY ON MORNING-AFTER PILL SAYS WOMEN MUST BE TOLD IT MAY CAUSE ABORTIONS by Patrick B Craine, Feb 22, 2013