The Family Beacon

President Biden has demonstrated a radical commitment to advancing the abortion lobby’s agenda during his first 100 days in office, but on the state level, the pro-life movement has been making major strides! Over 500 pro-life bills have been introduced across 46 states since January of this year. Of those, 61 have been signed into law, and abortion activists are worried. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute writes, “If this trend continues, 2021 will end up as the most damaging antiabortion state legislative session in a decade—and perhaps ever.” In just four days last week, 28 pro-life laws were signed in seven different states!

The Guttmacher Institute compared this year’s wave of pro-life legislation with 2011, the year they previously considered the most devastating to the abortion industry since abortion was legalized in all 50 states. By this time in 2011, 42 pro-life laws had been signed.

Abortionists and their allies are attacking a recent pro-life law in Ohio that requires the dignified treatment of the remains of babies who have been killed by abortion. Abortionists object to these laws because they draw attention to the reality of abortion by affirming the humanity of unborn children. Because all humans are created in the image of God, the human body ought to be treated with dignity and respect, even after death, regardless of how that person died. This means that aborted babies should never be thrown away, but should be given a proper burial or cremation.

When considering the staggering human cost of abortion, one question that is sometimes overlooked is what happens to those babies after they are aborted. As one pro-lifer asked, “What do you do with 65 million bodies?” In some cases, abortionists like Kermit Gosnell and Ulrich Klopfer have hoarded the bodies of their victims as trophies, or, as the 2015 undercover investigation of Planned Parenthood revealed, body parts are illegally sold for profit. In many cases, though, the bodies of babies who have been killed in abortion are thrown away as “medical waste.” Several states have moved to change that, passing laws requiring that abortion victims’ remains be either buried or cremated.

On Tuesday the Minnesota Senate Health and Human Services Committee advanced a pro-life bill subjecting abortion facilities to licensure and inspection requirements. This bill would require any facility that commits 10 or more abortions per month to be licensed by the health commissioner in order to operate. To be licensed, the abortion facility would be required to pass an inspection at least once every two years. The bill would also allow the attorney general, a county attorney, or a woman upon whom an abortion has been performed at an unlicensed facility to seek an injunction against that facility.

There is no good reason that abortion facilities should not be subject to these licensure requirements and routine inspections. Until abortion facilities can be completely shut down, they should be subject to rigorous licensure requirements and routine inspections. Perhaps these inspections would prevent the sort of situation that caused an Alabama woman to die from a botched abortion this week. The abortion industry has consistently demonstrated their disregard for women’s health and safety. This bill would hold them to account by requiring them to comply with licensing standards

Following up on his campaign promises to radically advance the abortion lobby’s agenda, President Biden has reversed the Mexico City Policy and rolled back the Title X Protect Life Rule. This means that U.S. taxpayer dollars will once again be used to pay for abortions in nations that receive aid from the United States, and will also be given to abortion businesses here in the U.S. via the Title X program.

The Mexico City Policy has been implemented by pro-life Presidents since the 1980s to prevent federal funding of non-government organizations (NGOs) that perform or promote abortions. Under the Trump administration, this policy was expanded so that it applied not just to USAID, but to any federal agency that distributes foreign health assistance. President Biden’s order reverses this, allowing taxpayer dollars to be used to export abortion to developing countries.

This order also rolls back a rule blocking Title X funds from going to abortion providers and prohibiting Title X recipients from referring patients to abortion providers. The Title X Family Planning program is intended to offer assistance to low-income and uninsured women and families. From 2013 to 2015, Planned Parenthood received $1.5 billion in federal funds through the Title X program. The Protect Life Rule prevented this from continuing and instead supported providers who do not offer or refer for abortion. Yesterday’s executive order means that Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers will once again be able to receive these funds.

Last week marked the 48th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling. While pro-lifers across the nation grieved the loss of life brought about by the ruling, pro-abortion politicians took the occasion to celebrate abortion and promise its further expansion. President Biden issued a statement reiterating his campaign promise to codify Roe v. Wade into law, and here in Minnesota, pro-abortion DFL lawmakers marked the anniversary of Roe v. Wade by introducing a bill that grants a “fundamental right to abortion.” In a statement issued on Twitter on January 22, Representative Kelly Morrison lamented the conservative majority on the Supreme Court and announced she was introducing the Protect Reproductive Options Act.

Representatives Alice Hausman and Mike Freiberg have joined Morrison as co-authors of the Protect Reproductive Options Act. In addition to establishing a “fundamental right” to abortion, the bill would prohibit “interference with reproductive decision making” in the form of regulation, including regulation of facilities or services. Planned Parenthood released a statement last week praising the bill

Contrary to the abortion lobby’s claims, laws restricting abortions really do decrease abortion rates and recent research coming out of Texas confirms this. A recent study that was presented by the media and the abortion industry as “proof” that a temporary abortion ban led to increased second-trimester abortion rates once the ban was lifted actually showed that abortion rates declined due to the ban.

During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Texas governor Greg Abbott issued an order putting non-essential and non-urgent medical procedures on hold, including most abortions. A recently released study argued that this move led to an increase in second-trimester abortions after the fact, citing the fact that second-trimester abortions increased by 61% once the ban was lifted. However, as Michael J. New pointed out at National Review, a closer look at the evidence tells a different story. New points out that the study shows that significantly fewer second-trimester abortions took place in February and March of 2020 than February and March of the previous year and that the total number of second-trimester abortions from February to May had decreased compared to 2019. Far from increasing abortion rates, Texas’s ban reduced the number of second trimester abortions performed in Texas in the spring of 2020. Not only that, but the number of abortions performed on Texas women in other states decreased by 8%, calling into question the claim that women will simply travel out of state to get an abortion when it is banned in their state.

Yesterday, in a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court reinstated FDA regulations on the abortion pill, reversing a lower court’s decision to waive FDA regulations and allow mail-order abortions during COVID-19.

Last year, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, abortion advocates demanded that FDA safety regulations on the abortion pill be suspended, arguing that they were unduly burdensome. The abortion pill regimen is regulated under the FDA’s Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategy (REMS) protocol. Under this protocol, a chemical abortion cannot be obtained without a physical examination, and the first of the two pills must be taken in the presence of a physician. In July, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang accepted the abortion lobby’s demands and waived the FDA’s in-person requirement, disregarding the safety of women.

Explaining why she left the pro-life movement, a writer on Medium recently asserted, “There are only two sides to this debate: you can be for women, or against them.” The false dichotomy between caring for women and protecting life is often held up as an argument against the pro-life movement. If pro-lifers really cared about women in difficult circumstances they would support abortion, the argument goes. Anyone who doesn’t is clearly unfeeling, calloused, and anti-woman. But this reasoning not only pits women against their children unnecessarily, it also fails to understand the true nature of compassion. Far from being an act of kindness, holding up abortion as the best or only option for a woman facing unplanned pregnancy is an incredibly harmful response to both women and children.

Protecting life in the womb and showing compassion for women can only be pitted against each other by telling a partial story. The argument that opposition to abortion is at odds with caring for women in difficult circumstances fails to consider the fact that, according to a national study, 64% of the women who have undergone abortion say that they felt pressured to do so, and 65% of those women showed signs of trauma. This is not kindness, but the enablement of coercion and abuse. Consider also the countless women who experience depression and PTSD after abortions while the abortion industry insists that there's no such thing as abortion regret, or the women who are injured and in some cases even die as a result of the unsafe and irresponsible practices of abortion facilities. There is nothing compassionate about the way the abortion industry silences these women, denies them support, and enables the people in their lives who may be manipulating, coercing, or abusing them.

Earlier this month, a group of Evangelicals took to the internet with the statement that they were “pro-life Evangelicals for Biden.” Their website states,

As pro-life Evangelicals, we disagree with Vice President Biden and the Democratic platform on the issue of abortion. But we believe a biblically shaped commitment to the sanctity of life compels us to a consistent ethic of life that affirms the sanctity of human life from beginning to end… Even as we continue to urge different policies on abortion, we urge evangelicals to elect Joe Biden as president.

In other words, this group argues that because they are pro-life, they will be voting for a candidate who is pro-abortion. This idea is woefully misguided. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are not simply not pro-life, they are both radically pro-abortion and committed to reversing the progress made by the pro-life movement in recent decades.

This group, and others who have made similar appeals heavily rely on the argument that state and local policies have a more of an effect on annual abortion rates than whether or not the president is pro-life, and thus whether or not a president opposes abortion should not be the main consideration a pro-life voter takes into account, or in the case of so-called “pro-life” voters supporting Biden, not a consideration that should be taken into account at all.

In recent years, abortion activists have attempted to argue that since the word “abortion” is not in the Bible, the Bible has nothing to say on the matter so Christians should not oppose abortion. It seems that this argument has begun to affect the thinking of many Christians—a recent study found that 44% of self-identified Evangelicals, 62% of Mainline Protestants, and 58% of Catholics believe that the Bible is ambiguous on abortion. How should we respond to this trend?

It’s true that the word “abortion” does not appear anywhere in Scripture, but just because the word itself does not appear in the Bible does not mean the Bible has nothing to say about abortion. When figuring out how to apply Scripture to the issue of abortion, we should consider what it has to say about life, including life in the womb, as well as what science has to say about when life begins.

In a TEDx talk called “I have one more chromosome than you. So what?” disability rights advocate Karen Gaffney commented to her audience, “Imagine that, ladies and gentlemen. Here we are… removing barriers to education, making inroads into a full and inclusive life for people like me, and we have those who say we shouldn’t even be born at all?”

Born in 1977, Gaffney grew up in a time when the neglect and mistreatment of people with Down syndrome had recently been brought to light by disability rights advocates who were calling for reform. The late 1960s and early 1970s saw the beginning of the end of mass institutionalization, but as recently as the 1980s, babies with Down syndrome could be denied lifesaving treatments and even food and water until an act of Congress prohibited this kind of discrimination.

The nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court has brought renewed attention to the urgent need to overturn Roe v. Wade. Over 61 million babies have lost their lives to abortion since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling, with the U.S. committing an estimated 98 abortions per hour. This is an evil that must be stopped, which means that ending legalized abortion is absolutely necessary. As Abby Johnson pointed out when she spoke at Minnesota Family Council’s annual dinner in September, in order to make abortion unthinkable, we must make it illegal. The appointment of a justice who recognizes the humanity of the unborn is an important step in that direction.

Tragically, our society often fails to grasp the true horror of abortion. The pro-life movement is frequently met with the glib response, “Don’t like abortion? Don’t get one!” as if abortion was merely a matter of personal preference, like a tattoo or a haircut, rather than the destruction of a human life. Because abortion is legal, people often assume that it is morally acceptable, or if nothing else, morally neutral. By legalizing abortion, the Supreme Court rendered a moral opinion on abortion, creating an uphill battle in the fight to build a culture of life. As long as abortion is legal, it will be treated as if it morally acceptable.

September 12 is National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Babies, a day set aside to grieve the terrible toll of abortion in the United States as pro-lifers gather at gravesites and memorials for babies who have lost their lives to abortion. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reported that in 2017, 862,320 abortions were committed in the united States, meaning that 18% of pregnancies in the U.S. that year ended in abortion. In Minnesota alone, nearly 10,000 babies lose their lives to abortion every year. Last year over 80% of those babies were killed after fetal heartbeat was detectable, and three survived the abortion procedure only to die shortly after.

By taking a day to grieve the tragedy of abortion, we recognize and remember the humanity of the babies who have been lost. In honoring their brief lives, we call attention to the horror of abortion and commit to fighting for life by reminding ourselves and our culture that each abortion is not merely a statistic but the destruction of a child’s life. Because of abortion, nearly 10,000 babies in Minnesota last year lost their lives before they had the opportunity to see the light of day.

The uncertainty and anxiety surrounding COVID-19 lockdowns has brought renewed attention to another crisis in the United States—an alarming uptick in death by suicide. Between 1999 and 2018, the national suicide rate increased by 30%, and last year it was found that 24% of Minnesota’s 11th graders had seriously considered suicide at some point. Recent months have escalated this tragic trend, with a June survey from the Center for Disease Control finding that 11% of respondents had seriously considered taking their own lives in the past 30 days.

Sadly, as our nation faces this sobering trend, the attempt to fight suicide in some is being undermined by a movement that is enabling and encouraging others to end their own lives. Physician-assisted suicide is currently legal in nine U.S. states, two of which legalized the practice in 2019. Last year Minnesota legislators held an informational hearing on a bill that would have legalized assisted suicide in our state. Despite the claims of assisted suicide proponents, assisted suicide is not compassionate. It denies real help and care to people who desperately need it, offering them the means to end their lives, rather than providing a helping hand as they walk through suffering.

Devaluing life in this way leaves hurting people vulnerable to the lie that their lives are less valuable and runs contrary to efforts to fight the suicide epidemic that is ravaging the U.S. Unsurprisingly, overall suicide rates have been found to increase when assisted suicide is legalized. Furthermore, when assisted suicide is legalized, the so-called “right” to die often becomes a duty to die, with 64% of patients who seek to end their own lives citing fears of becoming a “burden” to their family and friends as one of their reasons for requesting assisted suicide, and insurance companies denying coverage for expensive treatment options but offering to cover assisted suicide. Earlier this year, this mindset led a bioethicist to assert that “legalizing assisted dying would avoid [a] waste of resources.” Elderly populations are especially vulnerable to assisted suicide and already have the highest suicide rates of any age group in many parts of the world.

The Hyde Amendment is estimated to have saved over 2.4 million lives since 1976 by blocking federal funds from being used to pay for abortions. Research from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute shows that public funding for abortion increases abortion rates and that nearly a quarter of abortion-minded women choose life when Medicaid funds are restricted from being used for abortion. The pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute published similar findings, indicating that by blocking federal funds from paying for abortions, the Hyde Amendment saves roughly 60,000 lives per year. This lifesaving amendment has received bipartisan support for decades, and polling data shows that 60% of American voters oppose taxpayer-funded abortions.

According to reports that emerged on Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who chairs the subcommittee that funds federal health programs, informed a group of lawmakers that they would not be adding the Hyde Amendment to any government funding bills next year. Speaker Pelosi hinted at this shift earlier this year when she tried to sidestep the Hyde Amendment in emergency economic stimulus packages, first in March and then again in May. Writing for National Review, John McCormack has pointed out that the Democrat party has purged most of their pro-life members, leaving very few Democrats in Congress who support the Hyde Amendment.

Pro-lifers in New York are speaking out against an assembly bill intended to target pro-life pregnancy resource centers. Assembly bill A08212 would direct the commissioner of health to “conduct a study and issue a report examining the unmet health and resource needs facing pregnant women in New York and the impact of limited service pregnancy centers on the ability of women to obtain accurate, non-coercive health care information and timely access to a comprehensive range and reproductive and sexual health care services.” The bill authors reveal a bias against pro-life pregnancy centers by labeling them as “limited service.” Even before the bill has been signed into law, it has already identified what the results of the study ought to be—that pro-life pregnancy centers, because they offer “limited services” by not performing abortions, are leading to unmet needs and offering inaccurate and coercive information.

Abortion is not healthcare, and the fact that pro-life pregnancy centers do not perform abortions does not mean that they are not meeting health and resource needs. It is completely unreasonable to imply that pregnancy resource centers should be obligated to provide abortion, or that they are the cause of “healthcare” shortages because they don’t.

Earlier this week, 23 pro-life leaders sent a letter to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn asking him to remove the abortion pill from the U.S. market. The letter points out that the abortion pill, also known as RU-486 is considered so dangerous that it has been placed under the FDA’s Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategy (REMS) and that when it was approved in the U.S., the FDA accelerated the approval process, a move that is “usually reserved for high-risk drugs used to cure life-threatening illnesses, even though pregnancy is not an illness and the abortion does not cure or prevent any disease.”

The abortion pill ends the life of an unborn child and poses serious dangers to women, having been documented to result in severe complications and even death. A recent study found the abortion pill to be four times more dangerous to women than surgical abortion, and in the U.S. alone there have been over 4,000 adverse events from the abortion pill reported to the FDA, and 24 deaths since RU-486 was legalized. The letter notes that only the prescribing facility is required to report adverse events, and many women seek care at an emergency room instead of returning to the abortion facility. As such, we don’t know the true number of adverse events caused by the abortion pill in the past 20 years.