39 Years. Over a Million Medicaid Kids Saved.

Today is the 39th anniversary of the Hyde Amendment.

First enacted on September 30, 1976, the Hyde Amendment prohibits the use of federal Medicaid dollars for medically unnecessary abortions, except in cases of rape and incest. The result? There are over a million young Americans alive today who would have died in the absence of the Hyde Amendment. And that is a major cause for celebration!
 
We're not saying that the Hyde Amendment is perfect. In a handful of states, it has been rendered ineffective by activist judges who have ordered abortion payments from state Medicaid funds. It doesn't prevent taxpayer funding of abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood. And as previously stated, it doesn't offer any protection for children conceived in acts of violence.

But any policy that saves a million lives in less than 40 years is a policy worth preserving—and expanding.

Of course, abortion organizations don't see it that way. They're pushing for an end to the Hyde Amendment, using slogans like #BeBoldEndHyde. As if there's anything "bold" and courageous about killing someone who can't fight back.

One year from now, we will witness the 40th anniversary of the Hyde Amendment, and if it's anything like the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, it is going to be a zoo. So we're planning ahead, and we need your help.

Secular Pro-Life is seeking volunteers to serve on the advisory board for our Hyde Amendment project. To qualify, you must be a "Medicaid Kid"—a person who received prenatal/birth care through Medicaid as a baby, and who was born after September 30, 1976. We are very grateful to the pro-life Medicaid Kids who have already stepped up, and we need just two or three more to complete our board! Get all the details here.

#PinkOut for Planned Parenthood? We have a better idea.

Planned Parenthood is asking its supporters to "turn the internet pink" today, using the hashtags #PinkOut and #StandWithPP. This, of course, is in response to the #PPsellsbabyparts scandal and subsequent efforts to redirect Planned Parenthood's government funding to more deserving women's health providers.

I can't think of a better illustration of the shallowness of the pro-choice lobby. The pro-life movement sets forth legitimate concerns about organ sales and other unethical practices—including altering the abortion procedure in the interest of getting more intact organs, rather than in the interest of the woman's health—and they respond with "Ooo, look! PINK! Pink is pretty! Pink means we care about women!"

So we've created a meme to set the record straight:

We rarely use photos of abortion victims, but sometimes it is called for, and it's certainly an effective way to cut through the cutesy pink nonsense. The victim pictured here was killed when he or she was 10 weeks old, according to the Center for Bioethical Reform.

Please spread the meme far and wide, using their hashtag #PinkOut.

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Dear Bill Nye: Where's the science, guy?

NARAL Pro-Choice America posted a video featuring Bill Nye giving his views on abortion. Throughout the roughly four and a half minutes, Nye says pro-lifers have a “deep scientific lack of understanding” and hold positions “based on bad science.” He thinks we anti-abortion folk “apparently literally don’t know what you’re talking about” (as opposed to figuratively not knowing..? Not sure.)

We’d hope, then, that Nye would go on to explain exactly what scientific misunderstanding pro-lifers have, but sadly the video contains almost no science whatever. Instead Nye goes on about “men of European descent” (No, not really accurate) passing ignorant laws based on their “interpretation of a book written 5,000 years ago” (such a strawman) that apparently makes them think “when a man and a woman have sexual intercourse they always have a baby” (is that a joke?). He graciously informs us that, in fact, women don’t get pregnant literally every time they have sex. It’s a good thing we have famous scientists to explain that to us plebians.

Nye then meanders into very strange territory:

“You wouldn’t know how big a human egg was if it weren’t for microscopes. If it weren’t for scientists, medical researchers looking diligently. You wouldn’t know the process. You wouldn’t have that shot--the famous shot or shots where the sperm are bumping up against the egg. You wouldn’t have that without science. So then to claim that you know the next step when you obviously don’t… okay let me do that [take] again.”

It’s hard to understand how this distasteful mix of elitism and non sequiturs is supposed to relate to political positions on abortion. It seems like Nye is suggesting that pro-lifers and scientists are mutually exclusive groups (once again, off-base), that pro-lifers should be grateful to scientists for unraveling some of the mysteries of biology, and that pro-lifers are incapable of understanding the process of human reproduction beyond fertilization. In fact there seems to be this weird overtone hinting that science is inherently pro-choice and so pro-lifers have no right to discuss the scientific backing for our position.

These implications are especially rich considering Nye never does get around to explaining how the pro-life position is unscientific. The closest he comes is when he points out that many fertilized eggs don’t implant:

“Many many many more hundreds of eggs are fertilized than become humans. Eggs get fertilized—by that I mean sperm get accepted by ova—a lot. But that’s not all you need. You have to attach to the uterine wall, the inside of a womb.”

Nye is by no means the first person to suggest that implantation (attaching to the uterine wall) is somehow a more meaningful moment in human development than fertilization. The medical community defines the beginning of pregnancy as implantation, and plenty of pro-choicers have equivocated between the beginning of pregnancy and the beginning of a human organism.

But the people making this equivocation are the ones misunderstanding biology. As organisms, every one of us began as a zygote, and that means every one of us had a biological beginning that preceded the moment we implanted in our mother’s womb. Nye doesn’t explain how it’s “bad science” to acknowledge that reality. (Actually, I’m not sure whether Nye understands that’s what pro-lifers are saying. If Nye is aware of anything more than some pro-choice caricature of an actual pro-life position, he doesn’t show it.)

Note that even if implantation, rather than fertilization, were the defining moment of new human life, it wouldn't change the abortion debate very much. Abortions typically happen weeks or months after implantation. So even if Nye's comments had provided new, insightful information, they don't come close to demonstrating that an anti-abortion position must be based on "bad science."

Meanwhile, it’s true that if zygotes don’t implant they will die and not develop into fetuses. It’s also true that if fetuses get tangled in their umbilical cords they may be stillborn and not develop into infants. And infants with congenital heart defects may die and not develop into toddlers. And really any of us at any life stage could suffer a natural death and not develop into the next life stage. How does that fact imply that zygotes aren’t humans, much less that abortion is justified? Unfortunately, Nye is too busy venting his frustration at our ignorance to explain the relevance of his rambling. Or maybe he believes that as long as nature kills us, it’s okay if we kill each other. I mean tsunamis kill thousands of people, and that’s why we’re fine with genocide, right guys? Right?…No? Yeah, I guess that makes no sense at all.

The truth is science tells us the fetus is an organism and a member of our species (and it is a “deep scientific lack of understanding” to suggest otherwise). But science is descriptive, not prescriptive. Through genetics we know each of us inherits a mixture of our parents’ DNA; through embryology we know that our hearts begin to beat about three weeks after fertilization; through ultrasound and magnetic resonance technology we can watch the embryo's movements, which provide sensory input that spurs brain development; and yet this wealth of information can't indicate whether or why we should care.

Science can’t tell us what to value in human beings or when we should protect one another. Those questions fall within the realm of philosophy, a realm Nye steps squarely into when he implies a value judgement based on how easily organisms can naturally die. His implication isn’t a scientific fact, it’s a philosophical position, and Nye’s famous nickname doesn’t give him the right to conflate those two completely different approaches. It’s especially loathsome that this hand-wavy philosophical viewpoint is trying to be passed off as “science” by one of our country’s biggest science advocates. That’s not okay no matter how quirky his bowtie is.

35 Years of the One-Child Policy

A Chinese mother recovers from surgery with her forcibly aborted baby by her side.

Today marks the 35th anniversary of China's infamous one-child policy.

It is difficult for me, as an American, to wrap my head around the scale of this human rights disaster. Indeed, it's sometimes painful for me to look the abortion crisis of my own country straight in the eye. But we cannot turn away from the brutality and tragedy of the one-child policy. We owe it to the people of China to acknowledge their pain. And sadly, we must push back against our own leaders, like Joe Biden, for their cowardly acquiescence to China's slaughter of her own people.

In the United States, we lament the fact that boyfriends and fathers frequently coerce women into having abortions, using financial threats, emotional blackmail, and physical violence.
In China, women who are pregnant with a forbidden child are kidnapped by government agents, who then forcibly abort the children, even in the third trimester.

In the United States, we mourn the loss of approximately one million lives each year.
In China, there are over thirteen million abortions per year.

In the United States, sex-selective abortion is a pro-life concern in some regions, but in general, boys and girls are about equally likely to be victims of abortion.
In China, the one-child policy, combined with a strong traditional preference for sons, has led to the systematic destruction of preborn daughters so that today there are millions of "missing" women. Gendercide, in turn, exacerbates sex trafficking.

In the United States, pro-life advocates face censorship.
In China, pro-life advocates face arrest, beatings, and worse.

You can visit Women's Rights Without Frontiers to learn more about China's barbaric one-child policy.

Americans United for Life had an event planned in Washington, D.C. to mark this tragic anniversary, but it had to be postponed for security reasons related to the Pope's visit to the city. We will let you know when it is rescheduled.

Abortion is a symptom, not a solution

[Today's guest post is by Sean Cahill, a recent graduate of the University of Arizona College of Law. She says: "Because it changes the way my voice is heard when it comes to life issues, I feel compelled to state that I'm a woman, despite what my name suggests."]

When a man steals to satisfy hunger, we can safely assume that there is something wrong in society - so when a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is an evidence that either by education or circumstances she has been greatly wronged.

~Mattie Brinkerhoff, writing in Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton's feminist newspaper The Revolution, 1869

Whether you want abortion to be illegal or you champion the “right” to have an abortion up until a woman’s due date, we should be able to agree: when a woman has an abortion because she feels that it's the only way to make it in this world, we as a society have failed her.

The Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion, provides disturbing data on the reasons women seek abortion. They fall into two major categories: a lack of financial support, and a lack of emotional support. As Serrin Foster, the president of Feminists for Life, explains in the well-known speech The Feminist Case Against Abortion, most women who get abortions do so because they feel that they cannot complete their educations, would lose their jobs, would not be able to provide for their born children, or are afraid of stigma related to sex or pregnancy. These in fact are the very social problems that abortion lawyer Sarah Weddington emphasized during oral arguments for Roe v. Wade.

A lack of emotional or financial support is largely why women sought abortion in the 1800s, when prenatal development was poorly understood and abortion had not yet become illegal. If abortions are sought for the same or similar reasons as well over a hundred years later, where is our progress?

Pregnancy is not a disease and does not suddenly change a woman’s capacity to contribute to this world. And yet "feminists" tell me over and over: it would be impossible for her to complete college, pursue her career goals, or not end up on the street. If that's true, we have failed.

Why should we accept this? If these are in fact the justifications for abortion, then abortion is not a solution but a symptom, a symptom of a broken society that does not respect women for who they are.

In the years leading up to Roe v. Wade, Sarah Weddington, the National Organization of Women, and other lobbyists made a list evidencing women’s subordination, showing that women were being treated as second-class citizens. They shouted that pregnant and parenting women were forced to leave school, leave jobs, remain trapped in abusive relationships, raise children on their own because of irresponsible men, and were being alienated by friends and families because of the stigma related to sex and pregnancy outside of marriage. Then came the kicker: things were so bad for women that they were going to unlicensed doctors in unsanitary conditions, and having their unborn children dismembered and poisoned. Society responded, with the Supreme Court as its mouthpiece: You’re right, women do have it bad... you can start doing that last thing in a doctor’s office.

But no, we are not going to demand that children born outside of marriage and their mothers are de-stigmatized. No, we are not going to ensure women are able to earn a living wage. No, we are not going to ensure proper maternity benefits. No, we are not going to demand accommodations for parenting students and employees at colleges and workplaces. No, we are not going to demand men act responsibly. We are not going to do anything. You are going to have abortions. Society will not accommodate your fertility; your fertility must accommodate society. You get pregnant, you deal with it. 

Is this what liberal society celebrates every 22nd of January?

Where would we be today if the social activists of the 1960s and 1970s had demanded better than abortion? What if, forty-two years ago, people had looked at the list of reasons abortion was “necessary” and began systematically addressing those problems? What if we didn’t have legal abortion acting as a band-aid masking the real problems? What if women told boldly colleges, employers, men, and society at large: “We get pregnant. Accept it.”

This does not mean merely accepting the fact that pregnancy happens, but creating a culture of life that embraces motherhood instead of scorning it. Whether pro-choice or pro-life, we all have to agree that abortion should not be necessary for a woman to make it in this world. I say we demand better than abortion. We must demand society accept women as we are. Men are not the benchmark. Men can have sex without getting pregnant. Women get pregnant. Accept it.

Senate vote on Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act expected today

The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, commonly referred to as the "20-week ban" because supporters rely on evidence that children can feel pain 20 weeks after conception, is coming up for a vote in the Senate today. The House has already passed it.

I've noticed some confusion about whether this is related to the exploitation of late-term babies for organ harvesting and research, how this is connected to the ongoing Planned Parenthood scandal, and why pro-life leaders are pushing the issue when we all know President Obama will veto it anyway. So let's get back to basics.

The 20-week ban is the bare minimum of human decency. Developmentally, babies at 20 weeks of gestation are not much different from preemies. They can hear, respond to touch, kick, and yes, feel pain.

Above: A 21-week-old preborn baby smiles.

Even if you stubbornly believe in your heart of hearts that you become a person when you pass through the birth canal and not a second earlier, a 20-week ban is easily justified on pure animal welfare grounds. That may be why the majority of people who identify themselves as pro-choice reject such late-term abortions. Another important majority in favor of the 20-week ban: women.

Very few other nations allow elective abortions after 20 weeks. Among them are China and North Korea, not exactly the role models we want to follow on human rights.

We've been pursuing pain-capable legislation for a long time, at both the state and federal level. It was in the works for years before anyone had heard of the Center for Medical Progress, and it is not specific to Planned Parenthood. (In fact, the most notorious late-term abortionists are affiliated with independent abortion businesses; think Leroy Carhart and Kermit Gosnell.)

We are pushing forward despite opposition from the White House because this is an opportunity to hold Obama and his allies in Congress accountable for their extreme pro-abortion stance. Remember, President Clinton vetoed the partial-birth abortion ban twice before it finally passed under Bush, and it took several more years to get through the Supreme Court. The same persistence is needed here.

Slate: Be suspicious of safe havens, because pro-lifers support them!

"Safe haven" is a catchall term for laws that allow mothers to surrender newborns to hospitals, police stations, and similar facilities without facing any liability or interrogation. Every state in the U.S. has a safe haven law.

Slate published an article on the subject last week. At first, author Christina Cauterucci talks sense:

From a harm reduction standpoint, safe haven laws are an ideal way to prevent infant death and mistreatment without ignoring the reality that some mothers, for one reason or another, won’t consider formal adoption or parenthood viable options.

The harm being reduced here is babies left in dumpsters. So yeah, pretty important. Good.

Then it gets weird.

Cauterucci, quoting a book review, asserts with no evidence whatsoever that safe haven proponents treat mothers "as vessels for the precious infants, not as people in their own right with their own needs." Weren't we just talking about how safe haven laws meet the needs of mothers who "for one reason or another, won't consider formal adoption or parenthood viable options"?

Next paragraph:

Anti-abortion organizations have lobbied for safe haven laws as a means of preventing infanticide and offering another route for women who might have otherwise chosen abortion. One extreme development in safe haven options, Indiana’s pilot program for the kind of baby drop-boxes that currently exist in some countries in Europe and East Asia, is the pet project of pro-lifer Monica Kelsey.

Understand that this is Slate, whose authors and readers lean strongly in favor of abortion. When Cauterucci reports on pro-life advocacy for safe haven laws, she is making an argument against safe haven laws. That is made abundantly clear in the following paragraph, when she suggests that maybe safe haven laws aren't all bad, "though their advocates have leaned on anti-choice rhetoric."

Note carefully that this will not prevent anyone at Slate from continuing to assert that those mean anti-choicers do nothing to help mothers or children after birth, because we just want to control women's bodies.

Cauterucci takes issue with Monica Kelsey's approach in particular, stating that the U.N. "has condemned these boxes on the grounds that children have the right to identify their parents." In an ideal world, yes, everyone would know who their parents are. We do not live in an ideal world. Not knowing who your parents are is unfair, and even if the child is emotionally okay with it, there are the negative consequences of not having a complete family medical history. Still, it's not a fate worse than death... right?

Women need cheaper and more accessible ways to prevent or terminate unwanted pregnancies, and they need more support as mothers should they choose to give birth. They need these things more than they need easier ways to abandon their babies.

I can't formulate a better response than this comment on the original article:

I wonder if the author would be willing to look one of these kids in the face and say "it's too bad your mom didn't have better access to pregnancy termination services."

Eesh.

Why Focusing On the Unborn Child is So Crucial

Scott Klusendorf, president of Life Training Institute, developed a tool to help us keep the conversation focused on what the unborn is. That tool is called Trot Out the Toddler. Essentially, if someone is talking about circumstances, such as poverty, while these circumstances are important to discuss, they are not the issues that affect the morality or the immorality of abortion. As an example, if a woman is in poverty, we would not allow her to kill her toddler to ease the poverty of herself or her other kids, so if the unborn is a human being like the toddler is, then we can't allow a pregnant woman to kill her unborn child for that reason.

I have been perusing some pro-choice blogs this morning, and a lot of them are themed "why I am pro-choice". I haven't seen every single one, but they all tend to have one thing in common: they focus on circumstances. Not a one made a rigorous case for why abortion is morally permissible. Instead, they focus on women's circumstances and insist that women "need" abortions, irrespective of what the unborn is. They don't even seem bothered by the possibility that this could be an actual human child in the womb that they are callously destroying because they feel, for whatever reason, that the time is not right to "bring a child into the world."

It may make the abortion decision easier, and they can avoid making themselves look like monsters by convincing themselves it's not a child (all while making pro-life people look like monsters because we're trying to "take essential healthcare decisions away from women"), but it's an illegitimate move because this question must be answered before we can talk about whether or not abortion is a moral decision or whether or not it should be legal.

There are several arguments for the pro-life position, but the basic one is simple: It is immoral and should be illegal to intentionally kill an innocent human being. Abortion intentionally kills an innocent human being. Therefore, abortion is immoral and should be illegal. If your argument for abortion doesn't address this simple pro-life syllogism, then you are assuming your position is correct. You are not arguing for it.

We need your help

Historically, January has been the most expensive month of the year for Secular Pro-Life. January is when we have the best opportunity to share our secular message and equip pro-lifers to reach people of any faith and no faith. January is the March for Life in Washington, D.C., the Walk for Life West Coast in San Francisco, and the corresponding east coast and west coast Students for Life of America conferences. January is a whirlwind. (Or perhaps I should say it's a blizzard...)

But it's totally worth it, because Secular Pro-Life's presence is critically needed. Every year, we meet people who've never even heard of pro-life atheists. Every year, we assist student activists who are eager to make their pro-life clubs appealing to non-Christians. And every time one of our giant march banners appears in a media photo, it's a blow to pro-abortion stereotypes about what the pro-life movement is all about.

Even though it's only September, the expenses of January have already begun. We just purchased our exhibit spaces for the SFLA conferences. Soon we will buy mountains of postcards and brochures for pro-life students to take back to their schools. Our policy is to never charge students, so Secular Pro-Life relies on the generosity of donors to make it all happen.

One especially generous donor has stepped forward with a $1000 matching gift. If we can raise $1000 from our supporters, we'll have $2000 and be well on our way to covering January's bills! Thanks to another generous donor, we're already more than a quarter of the way to our $1000 goal.

If you value what Secular Pro-Life is doing, please support us with a donation. If you can only give ten dollars, give ten dollars; it will be twenty dollars to us! If you can give more, please give whatever amount you are comfortable with.

Thank you so much for your donations, your encouragement, and your zeal for life. With your help, we will make this our best January yet.

DONATE TODAY

Webcast tonight with the Center for Medical Progress

The Center for Medical Progress, the organization behind the undercover investigation of Planned Parenthood, is having a webcast tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern (6:00 p.m. Pacific).

The webcast will feature David Daleiden of CMP along with the lawyers who are defending him against lawsuits from NARAL and other abortion lobby actors. So far, Planned Parenthood has not sued, but it's a strong possibility.

I don't know much about the content planned for the webcast, but based on who's speaking, I expect that the focus will be on attacks on freedom of speech. David Bereit of 40 Days for Life is also speaking, so there will probably be some religious content.