In the House: The Born Alive Infant Protection Act, H.R. 4292, sponsored by Rep. Charles Canady (R-FL), cleared the House Judiciary Committee by a vote of 22-1 just before the recess. The bill ensures that newborn infants are entitled to appropriate medical care regardless of the circumstances surrounding their birth. Many babies who are aborted, miraculously emerge alive but are left to die of neglect and starvation, or are directly murdered.

In the Senate: The Child Custody Protection Act, S.661, sponsored by Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-MI), who is being challenged for re-election by pro-abortion, feminist Democrat Rep. Debbie Stabenow. The law would make it a federal crime for an adult, other than one of her parents, to transport a minor across state lines for an abortion in evasion of parental involvement laws in the pregnant girl’s home state.

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act, S. 1673, would clarify that a preborn child who is the victim of a violent crime in a federal jurisdiction — such as the military — is to be treated as such if the baby is killed as the result of an assault upon his mother.

The Pain Relief Promotion Act, H.R. 2260, would ensure that doctors licensed under federal law to prescribe controlled substances for pain relief may not prescribe, dispense or administer those drugs in lethal doses, despite state authorization. This bill would override Oregon’s legalization of assisted suicide as it relates to the use of such drugs to bring about the death of a patient.

Thanks to Life Advocacy Briefing, 9/3/2000, 888-344-LIFE, for information contained in this report.

Senator Specter Works to Legalize Human Embryo Experiments 
A bill that would authorize federally funded experimentation on stem cells harvested from embryonic babies is under consideration in the Senate. Pro-abortion Senator Arlen Specter has been promised a vote on S.2015, which would force American taxpayers to bankroll the killing of the tiniest of human babies so that their stem cells can be used in scientific experiments.

Proponents of the legislation say that a human embryo is nothing more than “a clump of cells.” Basic biology tells us that a unique, individual human being is in existence at conception. As such, he or she is a human subject as defined in the Nuremberg Code of Medical Ethics, which has guided scientists around the world ever since the end of World War II. The Code demands that medical experiments may not be conducted on humans unless they are for the benefit of the human subject and would not cause injury or death.

After all, each one of us is a clump of cells, albeit much larger. Stem cells can be removed from our bone marrow, for instance, with no threat to our life or health since we are made up of hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of cells. But a tiny embryonic baby is made up of only a few stem cells, so to remove them is to kill him.

Stem cells can and are being taken from adults bone marrow, from umbilical cord blood and from placentas. There is no need for embryonic stem cells. Perhaps the real intent is to break down the final barriers against the utilitarian exploitation of human life.

If this legislation passes and is signed into law by President Clinton, it will threaten our ability to protect innocent human life at any stage of development. Strong opposition to S.2015 is of the utmost importance.

Please contact your Senators right away. Inform them and ask for their vote against it.

Capitol Switchboard - 202-224-3121

Abortion Isn’t “Safe” - ABC Link Cannot be Discounted 
The link between abortion and the onset of breast cancer is becoming more and more evident. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Britain will call upon doctors to alert their patients to the ABC-Link. News from the Australian Herald Sun, 8/14/2000, points to exhaustive studies encompassing hundreds of thousands of women suggesting that those who terminate pregnancies run a 30 percent greater risk of breast cancer. Researchers in the United States have examined 28 separate studies revealing that 24,500 cases of breast cancer were attributable to abortion. Those in the pro-abortion lobby who claim that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare” have already shown their duplicity by working against any restriction that would serve to actually cause abortions to be “rare.” The new evidence of the

ABC-Link will be denied by them at every turn. But the facts are there - they can no longer call abortion “safe,” and doctors have an obligation to impart this knowledge to women considering an abortion. It’s up to us to see to it that sooner, rather than later, it is no longer “legal.”

Democrats on Abortion 
Democrats are once again in lock-step on their party’s platform commitment to stand behind every woman’s “right to choose,” consistent with Roe v. Wade and regardless of ability to pay. That means they support abortion on demand, for any reason, at any time, paid for by the taxpayers. The Republican Party Platform says the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed and calls for a human life amendment to the Constitution and extension of Fourteenth Amendment protection to unborn children. It opposes taxpayer funding of abortions and organizations which advocate it and calls for the appointment of judges who respect the sanctity of human life.

Congratulations to Judie Brown and ALL! 
American Life League (ALL) won a free-speech victory over the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority after the agency accepted the organization’s subway ad featuring a photo of a live fetus. The poster-size ad started appearing last week in hundreds of subway cars. A caption under a picture of a live unborn baby, urges pregnant women: “Please don’t do it. She’s your baby.”

American Life League, based in Stafford, VA, says the MTA resisted running the ad even though the agency has accepted ads from organizations that provide abortion counseling and services. At a press conference held at the New York Hilton in midtown, ALL president Judie Brown said, “We are here to celebrate a First Amendment victory, I think, not only for the American Life League and pro-lifers, but for all Americans.”

American Life League paid $36,000 for 1,400 copies of the ad which will appear in subway cars for a month. The group hopes to raise funds to run the ads in other major U.S. cities. (New York Daily News, 9/2/00)

American Life League - P.O. Box 1350 - Stafford, VA 22555 - 540/659-4171 - www.all.org.

Neuhaus on When Life Begins 
“First Things” magazine editor-in-chief, Father Richard John Neuhaus: “The question of when human life begins is inevitably and very publicly settled by science. The question of which human lives belong to the community that is protected by law is inescapably a political question. If politics is about how we ought to order our lives together, then abortion is the unavoidable political question of who belongs to the ‘we.’ It is not a private question but the most public of questions, namely, whom do we include, and whom do we exclude, from the polis?” (National Post, 1/27/99)