Blog

Yesterday, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant signed The Child Protection Act (House Bill 16) into law.   This protective new law is based, in significant part, on model legislation developed by AUL’s Vice President of Legal Affairs Denise Burke, a former state and federal prosecutor.
Developed in 2007, AUL’s innovative Child Protection Act helps ensure that all cases [...]

Americans United for Life Presents a Luncheon Symposium – From Planned Parenthood v. Casey to the “Day After Roe” : Casey’s Impact on Abortion Jurisprudence

Missouri State Senator Scott Rupp made this tweet:
It was an honor to introduce @CharmaineYoest Pres/CEO Americans United for Life @AUL in Missouri Senate yesterday.Thank you 4 all you do!
— Senator Scott Rupp (@Scott_Rupp) May 3, 2012

Missouri Lt. Governor Peter Kinder made the following tweet on Twitter today:
Great to meet & discuss #ProLife issues yesterday w/ [...]

Americans United for Life Vice President of External Affairs and Corporate Counsel Jeanneane Maxon will testify later today regarding a New Hampshire resolution commending the work of pregnancy care centers.
The resolution is part of an effort from Americans United for Life and Care Net to recognize the life-changing work of pregnancy care centers that offer [...]

Rep. Renee Ellmers used Twitter to congratulate AUL President & CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest on a Missouri House resolution honoring her:
Congratulations to AUL’s @CharmaineYoest for being honored by the Missouri House bit.ly/KuGNvN #prolife
— Rep. Renee Ellmers (@RepReneeEllmers) May 2, 2012

On Wednesday, May 2, Dr. Charmaine Yoest, president & CEO of Americans United for Life will testify in front of the Missouri House Health Care Policy Committee in a public hearing on HB 1933, the Ban on Abortion for Reasons of Sex Selection or Genetic Abnormality.
This hearing will take place at Noon in Jefferson City [...]

Anna Franzonello of AUL will participate in a live webcast sponsored by Students for Life tonight at 9 p.m EDT. The topic of the webcast is “How to Get a Job in the Pro-Life Movement.”
You can listen to the webcast live here. You can also listen via Skype here. You can also call in
to [...]

In honor of what would have been Thomas Jefferson’s 269th Birthday, pictures from inside the offices of Americans United for Life.

Dr. Charmaine Yoest commended the Arizona Legislature that yesterday passed a ban on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on AUL Model Legislation, calling the measure “a life-protecting bill designed to ensure that women don’t suffer from the risks of a dangerous, late-term procedure.” This is the first state in the country to pass [...]

On Tuesday, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee approved the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA), H.R. 2299 by a vote of 20 to 13.  CIANA would: (1) prevent a non-parent—an abuser, a parent of a minor’s boyfriend, or someone else—from transporting a minor across state lines to avoid complying with a parental involvement law in [...]

While abortion advocates fought tooth and nail in their failed attempt to derail the life-saving Virginia ultrasound legislation, they haven’t given up the fight even though the bill is now law.
Gov. McDonnell’s Facebook page has become a battleground for carrying on the debate. Despite the emphasis being on the supposed ‘problem’ with requiring an abortionist [...]

Last Friday afternoon—in its now predictable style of making controversial, anti-life announcements late Friday afternoons when most of the media have gone home and Americans are preparing to relax for the weekend—the Obama Administration announced another ruse to appear concerned with Americans’ freedom of conscience, even though it still fully intends to implement its coercive [...]

For years, the United Nations, and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and other abortion proponents have claimed that legal abortion contributes to reducing maternal mortality and to improving women’s health. Abortion advocates argued that the affects of abortion were negligible, while pregnancy could be dangerous.
In fact, one of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals [...]

Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President & CEO of Americans United for Life, made the following comments about the upcoming film October Baby:
“What a remarkable movie. This is a significant story, beautifully told. October Baby manages to take a story that begins with loss and grief and weave together an uplifting and inspiring look at redemption and [...]

The Alabama Supreme Court unanimously held that the court’s September 2011 decision in Mack v. Carmack, WL 3963006 (Ala. Sept. 9, 2011), extending the scope of Alabama’s wrongful death statute, includes the unborn child from the point of conception. Americans United for Life has supported these legal developments in the courts and in state and [...]

Today, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals stood by its decision to ensure that women have the ability to receive all “truthful, non-misleading” information available to them before choosing an abortion, and denied the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR)’s request for a new hearing regarding the Texas ultrasound law.
On January 10, 2012, a three-judge panel [...]

Over the past week, the nation witnessed the vicious and intense attacks that Planned Parenthood unleashed on Susan G. Komen for the Cure, one of the nation’s leading organization dedicated to finding life-saving treatment for women with breast cancer.  Planned Parenthood and its allies tried to portray Komen’s decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood as [...]

Noting that the Obama Administration’s “contraceptive” mandate continues to draw intense criticism, an article on Politico today stated, “The problem illustrates the complexities of Obama’s election-year calculus: Walk back the decision, and enrage women voters, a group he must woo to win reelection. Stick to it, and risk inflaming Catholics, a critical swing bloc that [...]

Today the Obama Administration added insult to injury, announcing that it would give some religious nonprofits an additional year to “adapt” to its coercive mandate that nearly all insurance plans provide coverage for the abortion-inducing drug ella.  Essentially, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that these employers have one [...]

Planned Parenthood has long claimed that legal abortion promotes maternal health. But a report published in Ireland in December contradicts that notion. The report, entitled Ireland’s Gain, published December 15 by the Pension And Population Research Institute (PAPRI) of London, shows positive women’s health trends, and positive population trends, while Ireland’s restrictive abortion law has [...]

Last week, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals asked AUL to re-file an amicus brief detailing the risk of suicide following abortion.  The request came as part of the Circuit’s extremely rare move to rehear arguments on South Dakota’s law requiring that women be informed of the risk of suicide that can follow abortion (“suicide [...]

AUL President & CEO Charmaine Yoest will be on Washington Journal on C-SPAN Monday morning at 7:45. Please check your local listings for cable or satellite channel information. You can also watch it online live at C-SPAN.org (click here for the direct link.)

You are cordially invited to attend the premiere of the new documentary by Gov. Mike Huckabee and Citizens United called The Gift of Life. It is an inspirational documentary that explores the sanctity of life as a moral issue and looks at the lives of individuals on the front lines of the Pro-Life movement in [...]

In one of the most recent acts of social imperialism by the United Nations, the CEDAW Committee determined that Peru must compensate a girl for being denied an abortion and liberalize its abortion policies.
This is only the most recent example of a United Nations committee overstepping its bounds to incorrectly imply that there is an [...]

The following blog post at LifeNews.com was written by William Saunders and Mary Novick, both of AUL:
The fight for legal recognition and protection of the unborn child is not fatally diminished by the recent rejection of the Mississippi personhood initiative. In fact, there have been multiple victories for the recognition of the [...]

Wouldn’t it be nice if, by some act of magic, a law that endangers unborn children could be transformed into a life-affirming statute?  Unfortunately, such magic does not exist; in fact, not even an order written by the President can modify language passed by Congress and signed by the President.
In an email written by then-Justice [...]

There was a great deal of news coverage recently featuring AUL both before and after the vote on Measure 26 in Mississippi last week. A sampling of that coverage is below.
Clarke Forsythe was interviewed by Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post:
“Mississippi should caution people about using abstract, broad language for state constitutional amendments,” says Clark[e] [...]

Sarah Kliff of The Washington Post interviewed Clarke Forsythe today in a discussion on the failure of Measure 26 in Mississippi yesterday.
From the story:
“Mississippi should caution people about using abstract, broad language for state constitutional amendments,” says Clark Forsythe, senior counsel at Americans United for Life, the country’s oldest antiabortion organization. Caution “will be taken [...]

John McCormack of Weekly Standard explores the issues behind why Measure 26 failed to pass in Mississippi yesterday:
By a 59 percent to 41 percent margin, Mississippi voters defeated a measure Tuesday that would have amended the state’s constitution to hold: “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, [...]

Photographs from AUL’s 40th Anniversary Gala on November 2, 2011 at the Newseum in Washington.

An article by Fred Barnes in the November 7 issue of The Weekly Standard features reporting on AUL.
From the article:
Opponents of abortion are rarely interviewed on television these days. “It’s much harder to get on TV than it used to be,” says Charmaine Yoest, who heads Americans United for Life. Bookers of guests for news [...]

An op-ed by AUL Senior Counsel Clarke Forsythe appeared in The Washington Times
The Alabama Supreme Court’s unanimous decision last month in a case called Mack v. Carmack might surprise some Americans.
The court held that an unborn child at any time of pregnancy is a person protected by Alabama’s wrongful-death laws. Wrongful-death statutes – which virtually [...]

The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) has challenged Oklahoma’s new law (HB 1970) which requires that physicians examine a woman before dispensing dangerous abortion drugs like RU-486, thereby banning “telemed abortions”—the provision of abortion drugs over the internet or via teleconference.  The law is based on AUL’s “Abortion-Inducing Drugs Safety Act.”
The law was championed by [...]

In its response to Denise Burke’s September 30, 2011 op-ed in the Washington Times, Media Matters relies on misleading statistics, peddled by Planned Parenthood in an effort – as Ms. Burke noted – to rehabilitate its increasingly damaged reputation.
Noticeably, Media Matters’ response does not attempt to refute the majority of Ms. Burke’s article in which [...]

Politifact has never refuted the fact that “the [Government Accountability][1] Office reported last year that it couldn’t determine how much federal funding Planned Parenthood received.” Rather, Politifact’s assessment has confirmed this fact as reported by AUL in “The Case for Investigating Planned Parenthood.”
In Poltifact’s attempt to dismiss a different charge, that there could be “missing” [...]

Some of the news coverage from this week at the links below.
Associated Press: GOP to Planned Parenthood: Hand over records
Washington Times – BURKE: American women don’t need Planned Parenthood
Legal Times – Planned Parenthood Turns to Hogan Lovells for Congressional Probe

National leaders and political luminaries will join together in November to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Americans United for Life — the nation’s premier pro-life legal team and the country’s first national pro-life organization — incorporated in 1971 before the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. The high profile event is already marked by [...]

In a unanimous decision[1] last Friday, the Alabama Supreme Court expanded legal protections for the unborn child when it ruled that Alabama’s wrongful death statute applied to the unborn child at any stage of development. This means that an offender can be tried civilly for the death of an unborn child regardless of viability.
April Mack [...]

Americans United for Life (AUL), a national public interest law and policy organization defending human life through vigorous legislative, judicial, and educational efforts, seeks highly-qualified and motivated law students to serve as legal externs during the Fall and Spring semesters each year. The externships are unpaid and may be undertaken for credit (as approved by [...]

The August 15, 2011 edition of The Christian Science Monitor features a profile of AUL President & CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest.
An excerpt from the story:
With an easy laugh and ample charm, Charmaine Yoest doesn’t at all appear to be Public Enemy No. 1 for the pro-abortion rights community. But the foundation of her rising influence [...]

Monday’s Christian Science Monitor features a profile of AUL’s Charmaine Yoest as the cover story:
With an easy laugh and ample charm, Charmaine Yoest doesn’t at all appear to be Public Enemy No. 1 for the pro-abortion rights community. But the foundation of her rising influence – the accessibility of her approach – becomes clear when [...]

It is not a tiny minority that stands in opposition to the Obama Administration mandate that nearly all insurance plans cover the “full range of FDA approved contraception.”  In fact, more Americans oppose the Obama Administration’s mandate than support it. 
As a Rasmussen poll reveals, 46% oppose forcing “contraceptive” coverage, while only 39% approve.  This fact [...]

Americans United for Life supporters offered special vacation package deal
Dr. Charmaine Yoest will join a Who’s Who of policy and media luminaries later this year for a cruise sponsored by National Review, bringing together notables from across the political spectrum so that they can mingle, speak and vacation with all those looking for a unique [...]

Anna Franzonello recorded an interview with CBS News earlier this week that appeared on local news broadcasts across the country. The above video is the news story that includes Franzonello.
Additionally, Politico and the American Spectator reported on this subject.

In its attempt to “debunk” the claim that an abortion drug is included in the “preventive services” mandate from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Media Matters ignores a glaring fact:  ella – a drug that is chemically similar to the FDA-approved abortion drug RU-486 – is included in the mandate. 
Unlike Plan B, [...]

In her article, “House Committee Votes to Reinstate Global Gag Rule (Again) and Other Misogynistic Amendments,” Ms. Jodi Jacobson suggests that “today’s GOP and Tea Parties” will ignore “evidence” in order to “pass a law undermining women’s access to healthcare.”    However, Ms. Jacobson’s article—full of rhetoric and lacking “evidence”—grossly mischaracterizes the Mexico City Policy’s purpose [...]

Anna Franzonello, staff counsel for AUL, will be on the Patt Morrison Show this afternoon at 2:40 p.m. Pacific Time (5:40 p.m. Eastern). David Lazarus is filling in for Morrison today. Franzonello will discuss yesterday’s Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendations on “preventive services for women.” For more information on today’s show, click here.
The [...]

Kellie Fiedorek, staff counsel for AUL, will be on Fox 5 News this afternoon at 5:30 p.m. EDT. (Check your DC area cable or satellite listings for the channel number.)
Fiedorek will discuss yesterday’s Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendations on “preventive services for women.”
To view this broadcast live online, click here.
Related:

AUL Press Release: As AUL predicted: [...]

NPR’s “Birth Control Without Copays Could Become Mandatory” gravely misleads its audience on the extent of pro-life Americans concerns about the health care reform law’s “preventive care” mandate including all FDA approved contraceptives.
Though noting one so-called “emergency contraceptive,” Plan B, can prevent implantation of a human embryo, NPR fails to discuss the other FDA approved [...]

Long decried as false, President Obama’s assurance that “if you like your [insurance] plan… you can keep your plan,” may become even more untrue for Americans who want to keep their pro-life insurance plans after the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issues regulations on “preventive care” for women that will apply to all [...]

At the cost of women’s health and safety and with a benefit to its bottom-line, Planned Parenthood has been rapidly increasing its use—and its misuse—of dangerous chemical abortions.
The FDA has recorded thousands of reported instances of serious adverse events, including death, following chemical abortions.  Concern for women’s health and safety is heightened when considering the [...]

In her article “The Silly Calls for Congress to Investigate Planned Parenthood,” Sarah Morice-Brubaker claims her audience are those who are “noncommittal” in debates about abortion.  However, Ms. Morice-Brubaker does an injustice to her readers, asking them to “speculate” with her on whether the heavily-subsidized abortion provider should be investigated, but ignoring–and mischaracterizing–the weight of [...]

From today’s Washington Times:
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which receives about $1 million a day in taxpayer funds, should be investigated by Congress, a group of House Republicans said in a Capitol Hill event Thursday.
“We have got to shine light on this situation and get the facts out to the American people,” said Rep. [...]

Life News reports on the conference:
Tomorrow, AUL officials will hold a press conference with Rep. Renee Ellmers, a North Carolina Republican, and Rep. Randy Hultgren, an Illinois Republican, who have invited other members of Congress to join them in calling for a congressional probe of the abortion giant.
The Other McCain blog also [...]

Today, a federal judge in New York enjoined the enforcement of a discriminatory ordinance targeting pregnancy centers. The ordinance was enacted by the New York City Council at the instigation of abortion advocates and sought to require pregnancy centers to make mandatory disclosures about services they provide and those they do not provide including [...]

There is an old lawyer’s adage: When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When the law is on your side, argue the law. And when you don’t have either the law or the facts on your side, pound the table!
On July 7th, Americans United for Life released its in-depth report — [...]

Kellie Fiedorek, Staff Counsel for AUL, will speak about AUL’s Special Report: The Case for Investigating Planned Parenthood today during the noon (eastern time) hour at The Bloggers Briefing sponsored by The Heritage Foundation.

National Catholic Register
Local government funding of 300 abortions in the District of Columbia made taxpayers complicit in a moral wrong that ended lives, pro-life critics said.
When a congressional ban on abortion funding was lifted from 2009 to 2011, the District of Columbia paid for at least 300 abortions at a cost [...]

This post was written by AUL Legal Fellow Katie Croghan.
“In attempting to ensure that a woman apprehend the full consequences of her decision, the State furthers the legitimate purpose of reducing the risk that a woman may elect an abortion, only to discover later, with devastating psychological consequences, that her decision was not fully informed.” [...]

In the wake of yesterday’s release of AUL’s special report on Planned Parenthood, Politico Pulse ran the following item today:
The day after the AUL memo dropped, PULSE reached out to Rep. Cliff Stearns, who chairs E&C’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee to see whether he’s planning a hearing on the issue. The short answer: maybe. “I [...]

The Hill
Americans United for Life has released a report making the case for an investigation of Planned Parenthood.
Click here to read the full report.

LifeNews.com
AUL staff combed through 20 years of Planned Parenthood financial data and the report documents the known and alleged abuses by Planned Parenthood, including the misuse of federal health care and family planning funds, failure to report criminal child sexual abuse, failure to comply with parental involvement laws, assisting those in engaged in prostitution and/or [...]

Washington Whispers at U.S. News
An anti-abortion group’s new probe of Planned Parenthood charges that the family planning organization has doubled its abortion business with a doubling of taxpayer support and fails to report instances of suspected child abuse.

The report, provided to Whispers, is being released tomorrow by Planned Parenthood’s arch-critic Americans United for Life, which [...]

Jill Stanek
The momentum for defunding Planned Parenthood at the state level is about to go national.
Today Americans United for Life is releasing the report, “The Case for Investigating Planned Parenthood,” which analyzes the scandal-ridden abortion provider that taxpayers support with over $363 million annually.
AUL’s report, following years of legal research of more than 20 [...]

The American Spectator
A shocking new report from a leading pro-life organization “documents the known and alleged abuses by Planned Parenthood,” providing evidence for a congressional probe of the nation’s largest abortion provider.
“[S]ubstantial evidence … appears to show a systemic and organization-wide pattern of violating federal and state laws,” charges The Case for Investigating Planned Parenthood, [...]

Politico Pulse
FIRST IN PULSE: AUL LOBBIES FOR PLANNED PARENTHOOD INVESTIGATION – Americans United for Life kicks off the morning with a push for a Congressional investigation of Planned Parenthood. They’re sending members a nine-page talking points memo titled “The Case for Investigating Planned Parenthood,” detailing the group’s federal funding and alleging “misuse of federal health [...]

Planned Parenthood promotes itself as “many things to many people,” but as the Americans United for Life Report documents, they are a scandal-ridden, heavily-subsidized abortion provider.

The AUL Report:
• Demonstrates that as Planned Parenthood has become more heavily subsidized by the government, Planned Parenthood has simultaneously become more abortion-saturated.

• Reveals how Planned Parenthood has failed to be a good steward of taxpayer dollars; affiliates in multiple states have been exposed for overbilling government health care programs.

• Exposes how Planned Parenthood is far outside the mainstream, opposing and ignoring common-sense laws designed to protect women and girls. For example, in 2009, the Alabama Department of Public Health issued a report stating that Planned Parenthood staff at a Birmingham, Alabama abortion clinic “failed to obtain parental consent for 9 of 9 minor patients in a manner that complies with state legal requirements.

Let us draw inspiration from the actions of the Polish Parliament last week in the overwhelming vote to totally outlaw abortion. There is hope!
Last week the Sejm – the lower chamber of the Polish Parliament – voted to outlaw all abortions in a landslide vote of 254 to 151 with 11 abstentions. This great legislative [...]

Late on Friday, June 24, 2011, District Court Judge Tanya Walton Pratt issued a preliminary injunction against a part of Indiana’s law, HEA 1210, that prohibits Indiana agencies from contracting with or making grants to abortion clinics.  Though the decision means the law is currently suspended, the case — initiated by Planned Parenthood of Indiana [...]

Dr. Charmaine Yoest and Denise Burke, both of AUL, penned an op-ed in today’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.
An excerpt from the piece:
The state of Indiana—and, by extension, 49 other states and the American taxpayer—is under siege from Planned Parenthood, the nation’s abortion super-provider, and its allies in the Obama administration. Indiana is being [...]

A pro-abortion website is targeting women in pro-life countries like Poland, Ireland, Malta and others for distribution of the abortion drug, RU-486. The goal of this website is to undermine pro-life laws and to reduce maternal mortality due to “unsafe abortions.”[1]
Womenonweb.org directs women through an online questionnaire, where they answer questions about gestational age etc. [...]

A recent Gallup poll has characterized American opinion on abortion as more “polarized” than in the past.  However, examining the poll results, America is more accurately described as continuing to reject abortion-on-demand.  And as Gallup notes, “Over the past two decades, Americans have consistently leaned toward believing abortion should be legal in only a few [...]

AUL has had several successes in the last 24 hours as state legislatures hit crunch time where bills are either passed or passed over for the year.

Nebraska: The legislature just passed AUL’s opt-out of the abortion mandate in the federal health care law. Many thanks to Senator Beau McCoy and his tireless efforts to see [...]

Yesterday, AUL’s Dan McConchie testified on three pro-life bills in Maine. Click here to listen to his testimony.
Some of the media coverage of the hearing is excerpted below.
The Kennebec Journal discusses the legislation, the hearings, and mentions AUL’s support:
L.D. 116, sponsored by state Rep. Tyler Clark, R-Easton, imposes a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion, [...]

Freedom of conscience is a core American principle.  It is a principle that a strong majority of Americans believe is important to apply to the health care profession.  While attacks against health care providers’ conscience rights are on the rise, several pieces of federal legislation – including H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion [...]

The State Column published this article Sunday:

OK Senate advances measure to regulate abortion-inducing drugs
The state Senate on Tuesday approved legislation that would require physicians to administer abortion inducing drugs in accordance with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines. Co-authored by Sen. Greg Treat, House Bill 1970 will protect patients and promote life.
“I’m pleased to [...]

Daniel McConchie, AUL’s Vice President of Government Affairs, will be speaking to the Georgetown Law School chapter of Advocates for Life on Friday, April 29 at 12 noon. The speech will be in Hotung 1000.
McConchie’s will speak on “The Life or Death Politics of Stem Cell Research.”
For more information on Stem Cell Research, see Defending [...]

Former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson testified on April 26, 2011 before the Texas Senate on behalf of legislation that would further regulate abortion-causing drugs, such as RU486. The measure, HB 3408 and SB 1790, was inspired by model legislation developed by Americans United for Life and sponsored by Rep. Jodie Laubenberg and Sen. Dan [...]

We previously wrote about speeches that AUL’s William Saunders gave in North Carolina and Massachusetts. The Charlotte Observer wrote about the North Carolina speech and that story is embedded below.
Saunders spoke to the St. Thomas More Scholars of Belmont Abbey College on April 6. The topic was “Assisted Suicide: Courage, Compassion, and the Truth.”
Saunders in [...]

Recently, PolitiFact has disputed the numbers that describe just how intertwined Planned Parenthood’s operations are with the practice of abortion.  But, PolitiFact has taken a stronger stance than Planned Parenthood is willing to about figures accounting for its pregnancy-related services.  Planned Parenthood Vice President for Communications Stuart Schear merely called it an “unverifiable statistic.”
One point [...]

How would you feel if you learned that your state government was promoting a medical procedure to your teenage daughter – one that carries risks of blood clots, infection, pelvic inflammatory disease, injury to her cervix (including cervical lacerations), injury to her other organs, future miscarriages and complicated pregnancies, infertility, hysterectomy, hemorrhage, depression, anxiety, increased [...]

Last week, AUL Senior Vice President & Senior Counsel William Saunders addressed three audiences to discuss various topics.
On Friday, Saunders spoke to the Society for Law, Life, and Religion at Harvard Law School. The topic was “Freedom of Conscience At Risk around the World.”
A recent column by Saunders published by The Catholic Thing also covered [...]

LifeNews.com reports on budget negotiations Friday and attempts to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood:
New reports issued today on the exchanges between pro-abortion President Barack Obama and pro-life Speaker John Boehner show Obama refused to agree to Boehner’s demand to cut Planned Parenthood funding.
For over an hour on Friday, Boehner kept lobbying Obama to agree [...]

Kellie Fiedorek, Staff Counsel for AUL, will be interviewed on the Don Kroah Show tonight at 6:15 p.m. on WAVA-FM.
WAVA can be heard locally in the Washington, D.C. area on 105.1 FM or you can listen live on the internet by clicking here.

William Saunders, Senior Counsel and Senior Vice President at Americans United for Life, is speaking Saturday at the MCFL 2011 Convention being held from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m at the Boston College Law School.
Saunders will speak on “Why Doctor-Prescribed Death Should Not Be Legalized.”

William Saunders,  AUL’s Sr. Vice President and Sr. Counsel, will speak on campus at Harvard Law School on Friday April 8 at 12 noon.
Saunders, an alumnus of Harvard Law, will speak before the Society for Law, Life, and Religion, which is a chapter of Advocates for Life. A recent project of Advocates for Life was [...]

Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review Online pens a column today entitled “Planned Parenthood’s Pink in Hot Water.”
Lopez discusses recent news and events related to Planned Parenthood as well as providing plenty of good background information on the group.
AUL President & CEO Charmaine Yoest is featured in the column:
“Isn’t it interesting that the president of [...]

Willam Saunders, Senior Vice President & Senior Counsel for AUL, will speak on “Assisted Suicide: Courage, Compassion, and the Truth” at Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, North Carolina. The presentation is sponsored by the St. Thomas More Scholars of Belmont Abbey College.
Saunders will speak in the Haid Ballroom from 7:30-8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 6, [...]

CBS News today reported on pro-life legislative efforts at the state level.
From the piece:
The anti-abortion rights movement last year found itself in a set of circumstances that have all worked to advance their agenda. Most importantly, states across the country elected new, emboldened conservative politicians. Hundreds of anti-abortion rights legislators and a net of 12 [...]

In the March 4 edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Psychiatric News, the APA announced that it had joined an amicus curiae brief filed in an Illinois state court, opposing the state’s parental notification law and attempting to directly counter an earlier brief filed by Americans United for Life (AUL).
It seems that AUL’s brief [...]

The Idaho Senate voted Friday 31-2 to pass SB 1070, a ban on physician assisted suicide that is based on the AUL model bill. AUL State Director Christ Troupis and Idaho Chooses Life Executive Director David Ripley were instrumental in promoting the bill’s passage.
Senator Russ Fulcher led the debate on the floor where he discussed [...]

1. In at least two courts and in multiple media outlets, abortion providers have admitted to purposely distributing RU-486 to women contrary to the way in which it was tested and approved by the FDA.
( See, e.g., Planned Parenthood Cincinnati Region v. Taft, 459 F. Supp. 2d 626, 630 n.7 (S.D. Ohio 2006); Planned Parenthood [...]

Each year, AUL publishes Defending Life: A State-by-State Legal Guide to Abortion, Bioethics, and the End of Life.
This annual resource manual combines our model legislation, expert analysis, and 50 state report cards into a single nonpartisan guide for legislators, policy makers, the media, and interested Americans. It comprehensively addresses abortion, protection of [...]

Americans United for Life congratulates its 2011 Fellows:
Katie Croghan, University of Georgia School of Law
Bradley Kehr, Georgetown University Law Center
Amy Pedagno, Ave Maria School of Law
The AUL Fellowship Program offers Fellows a challenging and rewarding summer in our Washington D.C. offices and first-hand experience working to protect life through state, federal, and international laws. Through an [...]

There have been a number of recent news stories and blog posts discussing AUL’s “Pregnant Woman’s Protection Act,” model legislation that ensures that a pregnant woman and her unborn child are protected from unlawful criminal violence and that a woman’s decision to carry her child to term is respected.    Unfortunately, many of these stories reveal [...]

I was very sorry to hear of Tom Donnelly’s death last Monday. I have missed my conversations with Tom since I last talked with him last June. Tom Donnelly was an urbane gentleman, accomplished lawyer, wise counselor, and careful financial steward. He often took the long view of organizational development and demanded frank analysis. [...]

Tulsa World
Last year, the state Legislature overrode then-Gov. Brad Henry’s veto to enact a law that requires women seeking abortions to have an ultrasound within an hour of the procedure and have the results orally explained.
That law was put on hold after Reproductive Services of Tulsa filed a lawsuit challenging the legislation’s constitutionality.
It was one [...]

An obituary from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Thomas Joseph Donnelly, who founded Federated Investors with two Central Catholic High classmates and was active in Catholic and community causes, died Saturday at a Lawrence, Mass., nursing home from complications of Parkinson’s disease. He was 85.
Mr. Donnelly’s practice of law in Pittsburgh was interrupted in 1955 [...]

Americans United for Life responded to Mother Jones & Huffington Post yesterday.
Others in the media reported on this same story since then. Excerpts and links are below.
LifeNews.com:
Americans United for Life is the sponsor of the model language South Dakota legislators relied on for their controversial bill — but the lawmakers made changes to the bill [...]

At the 2011 Meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the International Protect Life Commitee announced that Chile had received the International Protect Life Award. AUL’s William Saunders was a signer of the letter announcing the award that was delivered to the President of Chile. The letter can be found at the [...]

Americans United for Life Vice President of Legal Affairs Denise Burke noted that the anti-life media once again got their facts wrong in reporting on AUL’s “Pregnant Woman’s Protection Act.”  AUL’s groundbreaking model legislation seeks to ensure that a pregnant woman and her unborn child are protected from criminal violence and that her decision to [...]

“Telemed abortions” have made headlines in the last year, and with that attention AUL has received numerous requests from state legislators and policy groups seeking to curb the practice. While this issue is so “hot,” states have the perfect opportunity to protect women by regulating the provision of abortion-inducing drugs.
Abortion Providers Misuse Abortion Drugs
Planned Parenthood [...]

Remarks of William L. Saunders at the Annual Briefing of the DIIFSD during the 49th session of the CSD in New York (United Nations), February 11, 2011:
Ladies and Gentlemen –
I am pleased to be here today as a representative of those members of civil society who participated in the conference on “Empowerment of the Family [...]

The photographs below are from the Washington, D.C. Vigil for Victims held in conjunction with vigils nationally on February 14, 2011. To see the individual photographs, click here.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

On January 20, 2011, two pieces of legislation that would prohibit the use of federal tax dollars for abortions and abortion coverage were introduced in the House of Representatives.  Both bills are scheduled for committee hearings this week.
I. H.R. 3:  “The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act”
H.R. 3, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” [...]

The abortion industry is certainly prolific in its ability to find new ways to destroy human life.  And each “innovation” puts more women at risk.
Notorious abortionist, James Pendergraft, now performs a new method of late-term abortion in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. The procedure is called a “fetal intra-cardiac injection.” Using a sonogram, the abortionist [...]

Pictures from January 24, 2011. They include pictures from AUL’s President’s Council Breakfast with special guest Rep. Renee Ellmers, pictures from the March itself, and pictures from an Advocates for Life reception that evening featuring Jeanneane Maxon and George Weigel.

The above picture was taken outside the U.S. Supreme Court Building today during the 2011 March for Life.

Volunteers from AUL are handing out signs on the National Mall right now in preparation for today’s March for Life. Here’s a picture from outside the Smithsonian Metro station.

AUL staff and volunteer are already hard at work making preparations for today’s March for Life.
Rep. Renee Ellmers joined us this morning for a President’s Council breakfast and volunteers are already making preparations for putting together and distributing signs for the march.
The picture below is of AUL staff and volunteers grabbing a quick bite to [...]

Wednesday’s arrest of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, a West Philadelphia abortionist, for the murders of a pregnant woman and seven newborn infants and the blatant failure of Pennsylvania health officials to enforce the state’s existing abortion clinic regulations, underscore the need for more stringent regulation of abortion clinics and for more consistent and meaningful enforcement of [...]

The rate and number of abortions in the United States has been in decline since peaking in 1990, but the Guttmacher Institute issued a report this week that this decline has “stalled.”  The  memo below evaluates the data presented by the Guttmacher report.  The data demonstrates that Planned Parenthood’s business model – in particular, the [...]

AUL’s President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest will be among those attending events today marking the swearing in of now Speaker-elect John Boehner, giving her a front row seat to a historic shift of power and the proper vantage point to engage in one of Washington, D.C.’s favorite pastimes – prognostication.
With that in mind, AUL [...]

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) allows federal tax dollars to directly subsidize insurance plans that cover abortions. This contravenes existing law.  The most well-known examples of the prohibition on the use of federal tax dollars to subsidize insurance plans that cover abortions are the Hyde Amendment which applies to programs funded through [...]

A review of 2010 state legislative sessions across the country and legislation enacted that impacted Life issues.

William Saunders of AUL blogged about the case today at LifeNews.com. An excerpt is below.
Tomorrow, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is expected to announce its ruling in the case ABC v. Ireland.
The plaintiffs, three anonymous women A., B., and C., are asking that the Court create a right to abortion in the [...]

Perinatal hospice can be a wonderful tool to help bereaved families with their grief. Perinatal hospice professionals answer questions, help make plans, and provide care and support for both the baby and the family.
Unfortunately, very few families know this option is available, and to date, only one state requires that parents of terminally ill newborns [...]

Despite an effort by Planned Parenthood to have the law enjoined, the Alaska parental notification law (approved by voters in August 2010) will go into effect during litigation.
However, Superior Court Judge John Suddock did enjoin portions of the law’s enforcement mechanism; namely, he blocked the portions of the law enumerating criminal penalties and civil liability [...]

Yesterday afternoon, a group of pro-life Senators led the way to block the Department of Defense (DoD) Authorization bill which included language allowing military hospitals and personnel to be used for elective abortions paid for by Americans’ tax dollars.  The 57-40 vote in the U.S. Senate fell 3 votes short of the 60 votes the [...]

William Saunders of AUL recently blogged on this topic at LifeNews.com. An excerpt is below.
The hostilities toward conscience rights are abundant. This month the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) reviewed and reaffirmed the 2007 Ethics Committee Number 385, entitled The Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Medicine.
And last week a pro-life nurse [...]

In August, the FDA approved the new drug ella without adequate assurances of its safety for women and allowed the abortion-causing drug to be misleadingly labeled as contraception.  Now ella’s U.S.-based marketer, Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and an online based pharmacy, KwikMed, are further distorting the facts as they start to sell the drug.
On its self-described [...]

Tomorrow, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled to consider the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA).  Contrary to the stated anti-violence purpose of the bill, I-VAWA may launch an international assault on the unborn with federal tax dollars, and harm women world-wide by promoting a pro-abortion agenda. 
Section 3 of I-VAWA, the Statement of Policy, [...]

William Saunders of AUL recently blogged about the Burris Amendment for LifeNews.com. An excerpt is below:
The pro-abortion forces of the 111th Congress have returned to Capitol Hill with one more shot at forcing American taxpayers to subsidize elective abortions during the “Lame Duck” session of Congress.
One potential attack comes from an amendment [...]

The United States Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law held a hearing on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which President Jimmy Carter signed in 1980, but the Senate has never ratified. Americans United for Life has submitted a statement to the Judiciary [...]

This month the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) reviewed and reaffirmed the 2007 Ethics Committee Number 385, entitled The Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Medicine. This rule states, “physicians and other healthcare professionals have the duty to refer patients in a timely manner to other providers if they do not feel that [...]

Pro-life Americans celebrated a tremendous victory in August 2010 when Alaska voters approved a ballot initiative requiring parental notice before abortion.  Planned Parenthood previously filed a challenge in state court in an attempt to keep the measure off of the ballot, but was unsuccessful.
So it came as no surprise on Friday when the abortion industry [...]

Today, the Second Circuit ruled that a private individual does not have a right to sue her employer after being forced to participate in an abortion.
The plaintiff in the case, Catherina Lorena Cenzon-DeCarlo, was a nurse at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, where she was forced to participate in an abortion.  She later brought [...]

Today AUL filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of eight Illinois legislators, supporting the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act and urging the First District appellate court to uphold the law.
In 1995, the Illinois General Assembly enacted the Act, which requires parental notification before a minor can obtain an abortion. The Act has been enjoined [...]

Concerned that the “preventive care for women” mandate in the new health care law will be used to force all insurance plans to cover abortion and abortion-inducing drugs, Americans United for Life attended yesterday’s meeting held by the Institute of Medicine (IOM).  The IOM serves an important role in determining what constitutes “preventive care for [...]

Sometimes people have questioned how effective incremental pro-life legislation really is. It’s true that the relation between laws passed and lives saved can seem distant from each other. Years can pass before things really change. However, the moving plans of infamous, late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart prove laws can make a difference.
Dr. Carhart has been performing [...]

Could your insurance plan be required to cover abortion-inducing drugs? A known loophole in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) could allow pro-abortion advocates to sneak this abortion mandate through the back door. If a federal agency determines “contraception” is “preventive care” every American will be obligated to subsidize abortion through their health [...]

In fighting the good fight for life, it’s not uncommon for there to be set backs, long hours and little recognition. But that does not always have to be the case.
AUL is proud to congratulate William Saunders who received the St. Thomas More Award in Charlotte, North Carolina Tuesday, November 9. This award recognizes [...]

In just the latest in a string of reprehensible incidents in which abortion and abortion providers deliver substandard care and continue to practice without regard to accepted medical standards, a North Dakota abortionist is being investigated for practicing with an expired license.
Abortionist Tami Lynn Holst Thorndike appears to have valid medical licenses in Colorado and South [...]

After more than ten years of litigation and desperate obstructionism by Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates, Arizona’s comprehensive abortion clinic regulations are slated to go into effect on Monday, November 1.  The regulations were first enacted in 1999 following a tragic and preventable death at a Phoenix abortion clinic.
In April 1998, Lou Anne Herron, a [...]

Increasingly, being pro-abortion is a political problem. In the United States, facing a tough election year, even some self-proclaimed “abortion rights” supporters now claim that they favor restrictions on government funding of abortion, such as the Hyde Amendment. Significantly, in Brazil, presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff has signed a pledge that she will not initiate a [...]

In August, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new drug ella as an emergency contraceptive.  The drug, however, does more than prevent conception.  It can starve an already implanted embryo to death.  Deceptively marketed as contraception, the abortion-causing drug also poses serious health risks to women. 
Tonight, at 9:00 pm, members of the “ella [...]

Mildred Jefferson, M.D., was a pioneer in her profession, a pioneer for women and minorities, and a pioneer in the pro-life movement.  Few matched her courage and perseverance in the cause of protecting the unborn; none could match her eloquence or ability to inspire.  Americans United for Life greatly benefitted from her leadership and counsel [...]

This morning at the Capitol Hill Club, our friends at Alliance Defense Fund honored the great jurist, Robert Bork, for, among other things, his leadership in the fight against agenda-driven judging and for an originalist understanding of our constitution.
This reminded us of the key role Judge Bork recently played during the fight over the nomination [...]

Today (Tuesday, October 19), AUL’s legal team held an exclusive election briefing discussing the impact of taxpayer-funded abortion in the health care reform law. Click on the link above to hear the audio of the call as well as to read the legal affidavit on this issue.

Click here to read the affidavit that was discussed at today’s election tele-briefing.

William Saunders, Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel at AUL, addressed two audiences in Europe last week.
Mr. Saunders was invited by the Lawyers Forum of the Bar Association of Slovakia to speak on international law and human rights on October 4, in Bratislava, Slovakia.  Mr. Saunders expounded on how the left is misusing both international [...]

Virginia Law Advocates for Life, one of Advocates for Life’s newest Chapters, invited William Saunders, Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel at AUL, to speak at its first event, “Let’s Chat About Being Pro-Life.”  The event was an opportunity to begin what Chris Schandevel, President of Virginia Law Advocates for Life, hopes will become an [...]

At the behest of NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and other abortion advocates, the New York City Council is considering legislation placing unnecessary and potentially unconstitutional limits on advertising by pregnancy care centers and requiring them to post signs intended to discourage women from using the centers’ services.
The legislation, sponsored by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and [...]

Today, the U.S. Army convened an Article 32 hearing – the military’s version of a preliminary hearing – to investigate charges made against Major Nidal Hasan and stemming from the November 5, 2009 massacre at Fort Hood, Texas.  Hasan currently faces one charge and 13 specifications of premeditated murder in violation of Article 118 of [...]

Yesterday, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), meeting in London, adopted a resolution supporting the fundamental right of health care providers to practice medicine in accord with their individual consciences.  In pertinent part, the provisional resolution stated that “[N]o person, hospital or institution shall be coerced, held liable or discriminated against in [...]

Today, Slate asked women to comment on “Who Gets To Be a Feminist?” One woman responded that only one thing mattered to feminism: “You can’t call yourself a feminist if you don’t believe in the right to abortion.”
This assertion flies in the face of history and of the well-reasoned convictions of scores of American women.
Feminism, [...]

Denise Burke, Vice President of Legal Affairs for AUL, guest-blogged earlier this week at USCatholic.org. Burke’s guest post was made as part of Respect Life month guest-blogging at the site.
An excerpt from Burke’s post:
As I surveyed the past decade, I drew a great deal of sustenance and even pride from the pro-life movement’s progress [...]

On Tuesday, September 28, 2010, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order extending their previous decision to allow federal funding for human embryo destructive research to continue.  This “stay pending appeal,” like the panel’s previous decision, is temporary. The court will continue to consider the government’s appeal of [...]

The number of state and federal laws providing  legal recognition of and protection for the unborn child has grown substantially  in recent decades, despite the Roe v. Wade decision. That’s because the Roe decision was focused on abortion and did not address the states’ capacity to legally protect the unborn child, as a human being, [...]

Law students from Georgetown University Law School gathered to hear William Saunders, Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel at AUL, speak on “The ABCs of an International Right to Abortion” yesterday afternoon.  Saunders discussed the push by abortion advocates to “create” an international “right” to abortion.  “Given the United States Supreme Court’s control over abortion [...]

On September 28, 2000, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the abortion drug RU-486 for use in the United States.  A look at the facts surrounding the FDA approval of the drug and its 10 years of use in the U.S. is sobering.  Women’s health has been sacrificed and countless lives have been taken [...]

Friday, Americans United for Life submitted comments on the Department of Health and Human Services interim final rule to implement requirements in section 1101 of Title I (pertaining to the creation of the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan Program (PCIP program), or “high risk pools”) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (Affordable [...]

One of the consequences of Roe v. Wade was a public health vacuum that has not been filled for 37 years. The Court created the vacuum by eliminating the abortion laws of all 50 states, and then empowered abortionists to sue to prevent public health laws that would fill the vacuum.
The continuing impact [...]

Last Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Service held a hearing on “The Promise of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research.”  Many scientists promote embryo-destructive research as full of “promise” and “hope,” but the reality is this research destroys unborn children in the name of false “hope.”
Predictably, the Subcommittee had three witnesses [...]

Yesterday, a group of pro-life Senators led by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) banded together, leading an effort to block a Senate Defense-spending bill that would have opened the door for taxpayer-funded abortions on military bases. The 56-43 vote in the U.S. Senate fell four votes short of the [...]

Today marks the 15th Anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995, and the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.  Abortion advocates attending the Conference fought rigorously to establish a “right to abortion” on demand, but were defeated when governments declared that no “right to abortion” was [...]

Once again, it seems the “Political Class” is out of step with the American public on taxpayers paying for the destruction of human life.
In the latest Rasmussen Reports phone survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted August 25-26, 2010, 57% of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research.  Only 33% support it.
In contrast, Rasmussen [...]

Yesterday, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford signed House Bill 3245 into law, requiring that a woman considering abortion be given a full 24 hours to review and consider information on the abortion procedure, its complications and consequences, and the development of an unborn child before undergoing the procedure.
“I believe life is sacred, and in the [...]

Yesterday, an article was published on Slate, “Is Ella Birth Control or Abortion? The new morning-after pill.”
 This response will address some points made in the Slate article that may be misleading about the newly-approved drug.
“Studies have found [ella] to last longer and be twice as effective as Plan B, the version currently on the market, [...]

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the drug ella.   While the FDA is allowing the drug to be deceptively marketed as a “contraceptive,” the agency’s prescribing instructions for the drug admit that ella may cause abortions.
The drug ella is praised by its advocates for being very “effective.”  However, as the FDA notes, one [...]

Congress is taking a break for the month of August. Upon their return in September, a major piece of legislation containing a provision that would provide federal resources for abortion is expected to receive consideration by the full Senate.
Conversely, two pieces of legislation have been introduced in the House of Representatives that would prohibit the [...]

Dr. Michael New, a Summer Research Fellow at AUL, is one of the speakers today at The Bloggers Briefing at the Heritage Foundation. Dr. New will discuss his recent research. The briefing starts at Noon EDT. You can watch or listen online at www.thebloggersbriefing.com. You can also follow the hashtag of #TBB on Twitter for [...]

A member of the ella Causes Abortion Coalition, Americans United for Life co-signed a letter that was sent yesterday to the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asking the administration not to approve the new drug, ella.
Ella is being marketed as an “emergency contraceptive,” but it is the “next generation” of the [...]

Americans United for Life has joined with pro-life leaders around the world to oppose passage of the pro-abortion proposed constitution in Kenya.
On August 4, 2010, Kenyans will vote on a proposed constitution through a national referendum.  The constitution would change Kenyan law from one that protects the right to life of the unborn to one [...]

Last week, President Obama took advantage of the July 4th Recess to appoint Dr. Donald Berwick to the position of Administrator for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS is the agency that runs the Medicare and Medicaid programs).
Dr. Berwick is not only an outspoken advocate for government-controlled health care, [...]

Dr. Charmaine Yoest will appear on the Don Kroah Show on WAVA (105.1 FM in the Washington, D.C. area) today at 4:15 p.m. EDT. To listen live online, click on the FM Listen Live link on the left side of the station website.

Senator Amy Klobuchar asked Elena Kagan this morning about her judicial philosophy and certain statements she made in her Master’s thesis at Oxford.  Senator Klobuchar referenced where Kagan wrote: ”U.S. Supreme Court justices live in the knowledge that they have the authority to command or to block great social, political and economic change.  At times, the [...]

Senator Herb Kohl asked Elena Kagan this morning, “Since we don’t have a judicial record for you, what should we use to evaluate you to see what kind of justice you’ll be, what you’re judicial philosophy will be?”
Kagan responded: “Look to my whole life – my tenure as Solicitor General, as Dean of Harvard Law, [...]

AUL is proud to welcome its Summer Research Fellow, Dr. Michael J. New, whose studies for the Heritage Foundation and the Family Research Council have made him the leading expert on the effects of pro-life legislation.
Dr. New is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Alabama and a Fellow at the Witherspoon Institute, [...]

William L. Saunders of AUL spoke on “Catholic Social Teaching on Marriage and the Family—Implications for Public Policy” at the annual Summer Catholic Social Thought Institute earlier today. The weeklong Institute, conducted by the Society of Catholic Social Scientists and The Cardinal Newman Society, invites practitioners in social science disciplines or policy initiatives to provide [...]

By Daniel McConchie
Today, on the last day of Missouri’s legislative session, the legislature passed a combo opt-out/informed consent bill that now goes to Governor Jay Nixon for his consideration.
SB 793 makes Missouri the fifth state to vote to opt-out of the abortion requirements in the federal health care reform law.  Additionally, it expands the state’s [...]

MEMORANDUM
To: [Undisclosed Parties]

From: Americans United for Life Legal Team
Date: May 12, 2010
Re: Abortion Groups’ Newest Advocate from the Bench?
Americans’ lives are shaped and changed by the law, but a Supreme Court Justice’s role is not to impact people’s lives by shaping or changing the law according to her own beliefs.  Rather, a Justice should [...]

By Denise M. Burke
The Oklahoma House has voted 90-0 to adopt AUL’s “Joint Resolution Honoring Pregnancy Care Centers,” joining the Oklahoma Senate which had earlier adopted the same resolution.
Oklahoma House Resolution (HR) 1087 was sponsored by Representative Sally Kern who observed, “Pregnancy resource centers encourage women to make positive life choices by equipping them with [...]

Americans United for Life is hosting a reception this evening to present House Republican Leader John A. Boehner with the 2010 Henry J. Hyde Defender of Life Award.
Leader Boehner will be recognized both for his extraordinary leadership in the fight to prevent taxpayer-funded abortion and for his work to protect women’s health in his own [...]

AUL on Fox News – April 13, 2010

Though decidedly not a morning person, on Saturday I willingly woke up before the sun rose.  The occasion?  The “Riverside Run,” a race in Pittsburgh, with my sister Justine.  While I enjoy a good run, especially one that involves competing against a sibling, I had an added motivation that morning – the proceeds of the [...]

NPR featured AUL in a story on Morning Edition this morning that they gave the headline of “Health Law Rolls Back Abortion Rights, Groups Say.”
An excerpt:
But abortion opponents are not satisfied with the restrictions on abortion already in the measure, particularly those on abortion coverage in private plans that will be sold in the [...]

The Florida Board of Medicine revoked a Sarasota OB-GYN’s medical license last Friday for aborting the wrong baby of a mother pregnant with twins.  Dr. Matthew Kachinas mistakenly killed a healthy baby girl instead of her twin brother who had Down syndrome and possible congenital defects.  State records showed that Kachinas made a $250,000 liability [...]

Mr. William Saunders, AUL’s Sr. VP of Legal Affairs, is moderating a panel discussion today from Noon to 2 p.m. on Christian Legal Society v. Marti­nez – which is a case that will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. Oral arguments are scheduled for next week. The event will be [...]

Last Friday, Advocates for Life, AUL’s new initiative for pro-life law students across the country, in conjunction with Columbia Law Students for Life, sponsored a daylong legal symposium, “Looking Back, Looking Forward: Pro-life Strategy and Jurisprudence for the 21st Century.” The symposium examined some of the most dynamic and evolving areas of abortion law [...]

Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President & CEO of Americans United for Life, will be featured in a news story by Shannon Bream tonight on Special Report with Brett Baier. The show airs at 6 p.m. ET and the story featuring AUL will likely air around 6:15.
Bream blogged about the story earlier today.

Newsweek: The Gaggle
The New Health Care Fight: Abortion Coverage In State Exchanges
Sarah Kliff
While the Congressional fight over health care reform has wrapped up and legislators moved on, a new, state-level battle over abortion coverage has just begun.
The fight comes courtesy of Section 1303 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (page 779 here), [...]

William Saunders, Sr. Vice President of Legal Affairs at AUL, spoke at an event last Thursday at the Georgetown University Law center in Washington. The event, sponsored by the Progressive Life Alliance,  was on the topic of  “What is Pro-Life Healthcare Reform?”
Invited speakers besides Saunders included Kristen Day of Democrats for Life of America and [...]

The following report on Fox News quoted from the information contained in this post:

Americans United for Life’s Probable Short List of Supreme Court Nominees:
1. Elena Kagan – Solicitor General of the United States
The current Solicitor General (SG) of the United States, Elena Kagan is a former clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall (1987-1988) and former Dean [...]

“There are several nominees on the President’s short list of replacements for Justice Stevens who have a radical track record on the abortion issue. If a nominee is selected who is committed to imposing his or her social agenda on the Court, rather than interpreting the Constitution fairly, we will work to oppose their confirmation [...]

It’s only been two weeks since President Obama signed the health care bill into law, but states are already moving ahead to opt-out of the abortion provisions Nancy Pelosi insisted weren’t in there.
As a part of the Nelson-Reid compromise to the health care bill, states can now pass laws that prohibit insurance plans in the [...]

William Saunders, Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs at AUL, will be speaking on the “ABC’s of the International Right to Abortion” at Harvard Law School on Wednesday, April 7th at noon. The event will be in Pound 102.
The event is sponsored by the Society for Law, Life, and Religion at [...]

William Saunders, Senior Vice President for Legal Affairs at AUL, penned an op-ed in the Daily Caller today.
An excerpt:
It was deeply disappointing to read Congressman Bart Stupak’s op-ed, “Why I wrote the “˜Stupak Amendment’ and voted for health-care reform,” which appeared in the Washington Post on March 27. It was disappointing because it contained an [...]

According to the National Organization of Women (NOW), real reproductive justice for women requires “self-determination, equality, and the respect and support of her society” to help end “the discrimination and inequality that keep women from controlling their own reproductive lives.[i]
NOW’s quote suggests two things; that access to abortion on demand will engender more societal support [...]

During this month of March, “Woman’s History Month,” an important international meeting took place at the United Nations in New York City: the Commission on the Status of Women. This Commission marked the 15th anniversary of the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the outcome of the Fourth World Conference on [...]

Five years ago today, Terri Schiavo starved to death — the result of a court order requested by her husband, Michael, to deny her nutrition and hydration.
Terri was not “dying,” she was disabled.  She had been diagnosed as in a persistent vegetative state (PVS), which is defined as being “awake” but unconscious.  Her parents, doctors, [...]

“Abortion is safer than childbirth.” This statement is ubiquitous. A mantra for abortion advocates, it is repeated in popular culture and by educational and legal elites. It is common wisdom within the medical profession. For several decades now, it has shaped medical practice and public policy. Among its progeny are newer slogans, most recently, “abortion [...]

“Abortion is good for women.”  “It’s healthy.  Much healthier than childbirth.”  “It carries no real risks.”  And abortion providers are only concerned about “protecting women’s health.”  After all, “abortion protects women’s health.”
At least, that is what the abortion advocates want women to believe.  And for decades, the American public has been buying into these tired [...]

With the recent passage of health care reform, citizens across the country have asked if there is anything they can do to help stop the funding of abortion.
The good news is – yes you can.
The new health care law allows states to opt-out of one of the abortion provisions of the new federal system.  To [...]

Americans, pro-life and pro-choice alike, have spoken out against pre-natal sex selection as a form of discrimination and coercion. In August 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, an avowed “pro-choice” feminist and recipient of Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger Award, publicly opposed the practice of sex-selective abortion in India and China. The 2006 Zogby Poll found [...]

Recognizing that the majority of Americans are not comfortable with our abortion-on-demand jurisprudence, the mantra of abortion advocates is almost always tempered.  The former catch-phrase “safe, legal, and rare” has recently morphed into “reducing the need for abortion.”  (The Obama Administration made it clear that it was need not numbers of abortion that they are [...]

The term “reproductive justice” took on a personal meaning for me in April of 2008, when I underwent an emergency C-Section.  In spite of a flawless pregnancy and topnotch prenatal care, my labor completely stalled, my body simply could not do what it was supposed to do.  Fortunately, there was no panic, no fear; in [...]

“The doctor never conferred with me. ” ” I wasn’t given any information on what they were going to do or how. I was just taken in and taken care of, as they put it. I was never given the choice of whether I would allow adoption or anything.” “He never told [...]

Americans United for Life is committed to the principle of reproductive justice. If that seems strange from a pro-life perspective, it is because the abortion lobby has usurped the phrase “reproductive justice” to mean its antithesis.
The National Organization of Women (NOW) defines “reproductive justice” as the recognition “that reproductive oppression is a result of [...]

“This March, in celebration of Women’s History Month, Americans United for Life is taking the phrase “reproductive justice” back from the abortion lobby and restoring its rightful meaning. Real reproductive justice is pro-woman, not pro-abortion. It’s a cause, and a phrase, worth fighting for.” – [...]

Americans United for Life’s expert legal team is busy responding to an outpouring of requests from all 50 states to opt out of the abortion mandate contained in the new health care reform law.
We have drafted  the” Federal Abortion Mandate Opt-Out Act,” model legislation that states can use to opt-out of having health insurance plans [...]

The Commission on the Status of Women concluded earlier this month with the adoption of six resolutions on a range of issues, including gender equality, maternal mortality, and HIV-Aids.  For the first two weeks of March, delegates from countries across the world, as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), gathered at the United Nations in New [...]

Seattle Post Intelligencer
The mother of a Ballard High School student is fuming after the health center on campus helped facilitate her daughter’s abortion during school hours.
The mother, whom KOMO News has chosen to identify only as “Jill,” says the clinic kept the information “confidential.”
When she signed a consent form, Jill figured it [...]

Tuesday, the President signed the anti-life Senate health care reform bill into law after it narrowly passed the House of Representatives.  The bill was able to pass the House after the President secured a deal with Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and 5 or 6 other pro-life democrats who were promising to vote against it.
We extensively [...]

AUL Argues Proposed Research Violates Federal Law and is Unnecessary
Last night, attorneys with Americans United for Life filed a comment with the National Institutes of Health on its proposed change to allow research on even more human embryos. In its comment, AUL demonstrates that such research violates applicable law and is unnecessary in light [...]

Members of the AUL staff will be participating in today’s edition of The Bloggers Briefing. Matthew Faraci, VP of Communications and Marketing, and Anna Franzonello, Staff Counsel, will be speaking about health care reform legislation that passed over the weekend.
You can follow the briefing online via streaming audio and video on their website. You can [...]

The White House’s proposed executive order to “deal” with the abortion problems in the Senate health care reform bill reveals that the President will not even attempt to ensure that there is no federal funding for abortion or mandates for abortion coverage in the bill.
The first section of the proposed executive order provides that that [...]

The Idaho Senate has approved Senate Bill 1353, protecting health care professionals from being forced to violate their consciences or risk losing their jobs or facing other negative job consequences.  The Idaho House had previously approved an identical measure.  The legislation now heads to Governor Otter’s desk.
The legislation provides that no health care professional “shall [...]

Implicitly underlying all of Gibson’s arguments is the faulty idea that you cannot have universal health care without abortions. However, the government can choose to provide universal health care without accepting the false notion that abortion is health care – a point proved in November when the House passed its bill with the Stupak-Pitts Amendment’s funding restrictions.

David Gibson is at it again with more misrepresentations and distractions.
First, Gibson cites an article in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that notes abortion rates continued to decline in Massachusetts after the state enacted its health care reform in 2006.  However, the article tells us little about how enacting universal health care on [...]

In a “Dear Colleague” letter provided to other members of the House today, Rep. Kildee provides the following explanation for why the abortion language in the Senate health care reform bill will not prevent him from supporting the bill –  he is “convinced that the Senate language maintains the Hyde Amendment.”
Unfortunately, Rep. Kildee is wrong.  [...]

In a “Dear Colleague” letter provided to other members of the House today, Rep. Kildee provides the following explanation for why the abortion language in the Senate health care reform bill will not prevent him from supporting the bill – he is “convinced that the Senate language maintains the Hyde Amendment.”

Health care reform efforts are in full swing this week for the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives. Taking her cue from the President, Speaker Pelosi is attempting to paint health care reform as a done deal, in hopes of securing the votes of Members who are inclined to vote “No.”

We have a Bill…
Health care reform efforts are in full swing this week for the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives. Taking her cue from the President, Speaker Pelosi is attempting to paint health care reform as a done deal, in hopes of securing the votes of Members who are inclined to vote “No.”
The [...]

Last week marked week two of the annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at the United Nations in New York.  This year’s CSW was particularly significant because it marked the fifteenth anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Beijing, 1995).  At the conference in 1995, advocates attempted to establish a “right” [...]

Advocates for Life, Americans United for Life’s new, national organization for pro-life law students, hosted a Pro-Life Lawyers and Law Students Mixer in New York City this past week, together with Columbia Law School and Fordham Law School’s pro-life groups.
Kellie Fiedorek, National Coordinator of Advocates for Life, spoke briefly on the vision and purpose of [...]

Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President and CEO of AUL, will be on The Albert Mohler Program this afternoon. Dr. Yoest, who will be on the show live at 5:15 EDT, will discuss her recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.
For a list of local stations and times the show airs, please click here. You can also [...]

Response to David Gibson’s Analysis of CHC Provision in Senate Health Care Reform Bill
In his commentary on the Politics Daily website, David Gibson attacks pro-life opposition to the Senate health care reform bill on multiple fronts.  His analysis is mistaken, as is extensively explained in our previous blog posts and memoranda analyzing the Senate bill; [...]

Rep. Weiner (D-NY) today in an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly asserted:
“We have the Hyde Amendment that has been in place for a generation. I’m not crazy about it, but it says there should be no federal funding for abortion. That’s the law as we sit here, that will be the law after health [...]

Testimony in Opposition to House Bill 6205
Before the House Human Services Committee
Clarke Forsythe, Esq., Senior Counsel,
Americans United for Life (AUL)
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Thank you for the opportunity to submit this testimony in opposition to House Bill 6205.
Summary
Drafted in the context of federal constitutional abortion law, and following the language of the federal Freedom of Choice [...]

Response to claims made by Matthew Boudway of Commonweal:

Boudway:  Anyone who follows the arrows can see that no tax money is used to pay for abortions.

AUL:  The chart as a whole demonstrates how tax dollars will be used to pay for plans that cover abortions under the Senate/Obama health care reform bill.  Using tax dollars [...]

AUL Files Brief in Mexican Supreme Court Detailing Abortion’s Risks
WASHINGTON, DC — Attorneys with Americans United for Life have filed a brief in the Mexican Supreme Court supporting a constitutional amendment from the Mexican state of Baja that protects human life from conception.  In its brief, AUL argues that protecting unborn life also works to [...]

Joe Davis Jr. suffered from sickle cell anemia when he was an infant. His prognosis was bleak. His life was expected to be short, painful, and full of visits to the hospital. There was no cure for his condition.
Then the Davis family learned of a new treatment: a transplant using adult stem [...]

If you’re on Twitter, you can win an AUL gift pack consisting of a baseball cap, a reusable tote bag, and a copy of Defending Life 2010.
All you need to do is follow @AULaction and @AUL on Twitter and then retweet our original message or copy and paste the text below in your own tweet:
Win [...]

Mailee R. Smith, Staff Counsel
Abortion advocates have long claimed that access to legal abortion is necessary to protect women’s health and that bans on abortion inevitably result in increased incidents of maternal death.  However, a groundbreaking study that will be formally published later this year refutes these claims.
Researchers in Chile have found that that banning [...]

Angie Jackson received national attention for live-tweeting her chemical abortion.  Her aim was to “demystify” abortion and let women know it was “not that bad.”  What she achieved, however, was a muddling of the truth about the abortion drug RU-486 (also known as mifepristone, or by its brand name, Mifeprex).
Angie’s messages claim the side-effects of [...]

The Need for Informed Consent: The Risks of IVF are Becoming Clearer
Mailee R. Smith, Staff Counsel
For decades now, women have been undergoing the process of in vitro fertilization (IVF) without truly knowing the risks that IVF might hold for their health or the health of their children.  This is due in significant part to lax [...]

Combating the True “Back Alley”: Closure of Pennsylvania Abortion Clinic Dramatically Underscores Need for Medically-Appropriate Regulation
By Denise M. Burke
Since the 1960s, abortion proponents have argued that legalized abortion is beneficial to the health and well-being of American women.  In support of this assertion, they have often put forth a litany of purported advantages.  A primary [...]

On Monday February 22, 2010, following the release of President Obama’s new health care reform proposal, Nancy Ann Deparle, Director of the White House Office of Health Care Reform,  made the following statement on a conference call about how the Obama proposal addresses abortion:
The starting point is the Senate bill with the Nelson language. It’s [...]

On Monday morning, February 22, 2010, President Obama unveiled a “new” health care reform proposal, purporting to combine ideas from the Senate-passed bill, the House-passed bill, and Republican proposals.  However, a careful examination of the White House proposal (which lacks actual legislative language) and statements made by members of the Obama Administration during a health [...]

February 22, 2010 Update
On Monday morning, February 22, 2010, President Obama unveiled a “new” health care reform proposal.  The White House proposal is a modification of the Senate-passed bill.  However, the White House failed to remove the anti-life language.  Therefore, all of AUL’s concerns about the bill’s abortion-related provisions, conscience provision, and end-of-life provisions remain.  [...]

February 22, 2010 Update
On Monday morning, February 22, 2010, President Obama unveiled a “new” health care reform proposal.  The White House proposal is a modification of the Senate-passed bill.  However, the White House failed to remove the anti-life language.  Therefore, all of AUL’s concerns about the bill’s abortion-related provisions, conscience provision, and end-of-life provisions remain.  [...]

Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President & CEO of Americans United for Life, will be participating in a panel discussion today at CPAC. The panel, “Saving Freedom One Life at a Time”, will start at 9:15 a.m. EST. You can watch the panel discussion on Townhall’s CPAC video stream.
More on the rest of AUL’s participation at CPAC [...]

Dr. Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of AUL, will be speaking at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, DC this Friday, February 19th at 9:15am Eastern time on the topic “Saving One Life at a Time.” The conference started this morning and runs through Saturday evening. Marco Rubio and Jim DeMint spoke [...]

In honor of today’s holiday (that most people refer to as Presidents’ Day), here are some quotations from American presidents on the issue of life.
Thomas Jefferson
“The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”
Ronald Reagan
“I’ve noticed that everybody that is for abortion has [...]

While abortion advocates like NARAL are targeting pregnancy resource centers and their life-saving work in states like Washington and Virginia, those same centers got a boost this week in Oklahoma.
On Rose Day, the annual pro-life lobbying day in the Oklahoma legislature, the Senate unanimously passed AUL’s model resolution supporting the state’s pregnancy centers. Pro-life [...]

[Editor's Note: Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President of AUL, will be on Special Report with Bret Baier tonight (2/5/10) to discuss this topic. Click here for the live video. Dr. Yoest will likely be on from 6:15 to 6:20.]
Pro-Abortion Forces Declare War
Abortion Supporters Push Radical Agenda at Expense of U.S. Military
Not content simply to be at [...]

Meghan Duke blogs at On the Square about her experience Saturday at the National Gallery of Art in Washington:
After searching my bag, the two guards at the Gallery told me, “You’re good to go in, but first you need to remove that pro-life pin.” He was indicating the small lime green pin with the message [...]

AUL Action has a special site covering today’s March for Life at VirtualMarchforLife.com. We will have updates there throughout the day.

While there, you can watch a live webcast courtesy of EWTN. You can also see Twitter and text message (SMS) updates. To have your updates show up, use the Twitter hashtag of #march4life or text [...]

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are expected to attend tomorrow’s National March for Life, which takes place annually on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. Americans United for Life Action, in an effort to bolster the real March for Life, launched the first-ever Virtual March for Life www.virtualmarchforlife.com earlier this week. This innovative [...]

And maybe closer than you think
In a stunning reversal of fortunes, Senator Ben Nelson’s popularity is in a nosedive at home in Nebraska after he threw away his pro-life credentials for a few Medicaid dollars.
After standing firm for weeks insisting that there be no expansion of abortion through the government health care bill, Nelson abandoned [...]

In today’s Washington Times, Americans United for Life President & CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest penned an op-ed with other pro-life leaders—Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony List, Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life and David Bereit of 40 Days for Life— outlining the abortion lobby’s stealth push to win big financially from abortion dollars in [...]

“Americans don’t want taxpayer funding for abortions and are opposed to a first-ever, mandatory abortion tax. Knowing this, the bill’s proponents have rushed it through the Senate at a time when Americans are focused on celebrating Christmas with their families.”
- Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President of Americans United for Life
For more information:
http://blog.aul.org/2009/12/20/the-abortion-tax-and-other-problems-in-senator-reid%E2%80%99s-amendment/
http://blog.aul.org/2009/12/19/legal-analysis-of-life-concerns-in-managers-amendment/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 22, 2009
Washington, D.C. Today, Americans United for Life (AUL) filed an amicus brief in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, detailing the links between abortion and the increased risk of depression and suicide.  The brief seeks to overturn a lower court’s decision that abortion providers in South Dakota are not required to [...]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 21, 2009
Washington, D.C. Today, Americans United for Life (AUL) filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court urging the Court to hear a challenge to, and ultimately strike down, a 2007 Massachusetts law criminalizing the peaceful exercise of First Amendment rights outside abortion clinics.
“This law is an affront to the basic, [...]

Statement of Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President of Americans United for Life

“60 U.S. Senators just made history by voting to move forward with a bill that imposes a first-ever mandatory abortion tax on the American people. Majority Leader Reid held this vote in the middle of the night because he knows that the vast majority of [...]

I. Abortion
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care bill includes pro-abortion language that mirrors the Capps Amendment from the original House health care bill.  The bill:

Allows the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to require coverage of any and all abortions through the community health insurance (public) option (as long as an accounting mechanism [...]

Pro-life leaders will convene an urgent meeting tonight to unveil a grassroots strategy for tens of thousands of pro-life activists across the nation as the Senate health care legislation reaches a critical phase. A live audiocast will be available beginning at 9 pm ET.
WHEN: Tuesday, December 15 @ 9 pm ET
WHERE: Americans United for [...]

“This appropriations bill guts a longstanding prohibition on using public funds to pay for abortions in the District of Columbia.  The bill also provides millions of dollars for international “family planning” that could be directed to organizations that pay for and promote abortions.  A majority of Americans do not support the use of their tax [...]

This morning, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) heard arguments in the case ABC v. Ireland.  A consultant in the case, Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs William Saunders reports from Strasbourg:
“As the government of Ireland emphasized in oral arguments before the Grand Chamber today, this case has not satisfied the prerequisites for review [...]

“A vote to table the amendment is a vote against the Nelson-Hatch-Casey amendment. A majority of Senators effectively endorsed the abortion lobby’s goal of mainstreaming abortion as health care.”

– Charmaine Yoest
The U.S. Senate voted today to table the Nelson-Hatch-Casey amendment, which would have maintained existing law by prohibiting both federal funding of abortion and [...]

Tomorrow, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is hearing arguments in ABC v. Ireland, a case challenging Ireland’s protection of unborn life.  Americans United for Life played an active role when Ireland, by popular referenda, guaranteed the right to life to the unborn members of its nation.  This week, as an advisor to the [...]

“This health care bill is an abortion business bailout.”  — Charmaine Yoest
On the day that a vote on the Nelson-Hatch-Casey amendment is expected, Americans United for Life’s legislative arm AUL Action published a full-page newspaper ad in one of the top Capitol Hill newspapers The Hill challenging Planned Parenthood to state how much they stand [...]

On Monday, Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Robert Casey (D-PA) offered an amendment to the Senate health care reform bill that would ensure that insurance plans are not forced by the government to cover abortions, and would prohibit federal funding for elective abortions and for insurance plans that cover elective abortions.  This [...]

World leaders convening in Copenhagen for a United Nations Convention on Climate Change are considering a proposed multilateral treaty that mandates lower greenhouse gas emissions and shared clean energy technology. Few Americans who support these broad objectives know what the treaty actually says or what its impact might be. Even fewer recognize the unarticulated [...]

11/18/09 – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) unveiled the U.S. Senate’s health care reform bill. The bill includes pro-abortion language and mirrors the false compromise Capps Amendment from the House debate, it allows the public option to include abortion coverage and provides federal subsidies for private plans which cover abortion.

CNN (11/19/09): Americans United for [...]

Today the Senate accepted the Mikulski (D-Md) amendment to the Senate health care bill by a vote of 61-39.  The amendment does not explicitly require abortion coverage, but it also fails to explicitly exclude it.  The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) could categorize abortion as “preventive care,” and would therefore recommend coverage for abortion [...]

It’s been a busy week.  As Denise Burke wrote yesterday, President Obama announced the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, a commission likely to be comprised of people who think just like he does on the issues.  The administration also explicitly authorized the use of taxpayer dollars for destructive embryo research.  Of course, [...]

At 11:45 today, the Senate will vote on two abortion-related amendments to the Senate health care bill:  the Murkowski (R-Alaska) amendment and the Mikulski (D-Maryland) amendment.  Both amendments will require 60 votes to pass.
The Murkowski amendment
Senator Murkowski’s amendment would ensure that abortion is not classified by the government as “preventive care” or as a “preventive [...]

The Obama administration today approved the first human embryonic stem cells for experiments by federally funded scientists under a new policy designed to dramatically expand embryonic stem cell research. 
Americans United for Life President and CEO Charmaine Yoest said, “Despite years of research, human embryonic stem cells have yet to be used in real therapies for [...]

Over the past week, the Obama Administration has made two key decisions on bioethics — both of which promote unethical and anti-life policies.
First, on November 24, President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13521, establishing the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. The new Commission, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and [...]

Pro-abortion activists will lobby Washington on Wednesday, December 2nd in their campaign against the U.S. House bill’s pro-life Stupak-Pitts Amendment.
Americans United for Life President and CEO Charmaine Yoest released this statement in response to the abortion lobby’s effort to expand taxpayer funding of abortion: “By confusing abortion with health care, the feminist groups and the [...]

Even with the inclusion of the Stupak-Pitts amendment barring federal funding of abortion in the health care reform bill passed by the House, H.R. 3962, additional pro-life concerns remain.
Rationing of Care
H.R. 3962 includes Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) provisions.  It is laudable that CER attempts to identify, evaluate and promote medical best practices–across the spectrum of [...]

by Denise M. Burke
Vice President of Legal Affairs
As debate rages over healthcare legislation currently under consideration in Congress and, specifically, whether abortion should be taxpayer-funded under the guise of “healthcare reform,” it would be easy to overlook an important and very inauspicious milestone:  the 20th anniversary of the federal “Freedom of Choice” Act (FOCA).
A Brief [...]

Rep. Patrick Kennedy’s dispute with Rhode Island Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin attracted national attention on Sunday when Kennedy said that Tobin had asked him to refrain from receiving communion because of his pro-abortion views.
MSNBC television talk show host Chris Matthews debated Bishop Tobin today about abortion, law and Rep. Kennedy’s Holy Communion:
PART 1

Part 2

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said on Fox News Sunday that the U.S. House bill containing the pro-life Stupak Amendment changes long-established law.  Sen. Stabenow is referring to the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits Medicaid from funding abortions, and is a provision that Americans United for Life successfully defended before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1980.
The “settled [...]

Americans United for Life’s legislative arm AUL Action released this statement in reaction to the cloture vote:
“This was a pro-abortion vote tonight because this bill provides for an unprecedented expansion of federally-funded abortion. Supporters argued that the debate needed to move forward, but life should be at the heart of any health care reform. [...]

Moments ago, the Senate voted 60-39, a party-line vote, to begin debate on Majority Leader Reid’s anti-life health care reform bill.  The debate and amendment process will begin Monday, November 30th.
Majority Leader Reid’s health care bill:

Allows the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to require coverage of any and all abortions through the public [...]

Senator Johanns is emphasizing that the Stupak-Pitts language is NOT in the Senate bill.  Therefore, it is not likely to be in the final bill (once the Senate version is reconciled with the House version).  He said that there are not enough prolife senators to add this provision to the bill.
Senator Johanns argues that the [...]

Senators Hatch, Brownback, and Johanns are discussing polls which show that Americans over-whelmingly oppose abortion funding by the government.  Senator Hatch is reading personal letters from Americans who oppose federally funded abortion and support strong conscience protection.

Senator Hatch is reading, word for word, our sister organization AUL Action’s score letter on the Senate Floor.

Senators Hatch (UT), Brownback (KS), and Johanns (NB) are having an excellent colloquy on the Senate Floor right now.  They are discussing: the current status of federal law on abortion funding and coverage; why the Stupak-Pitts Amendment language is needed to preserve existing, established law; and why the Reid language is not sufficient.
They are answering [...]

Tune in to C-SPAN 2 at 1:00 p.m. EST to hear pro-life Senators discuss the pro-abortion provisions in Majority Leader Reid’s health care reform bill.
Remember, the Reid bill:

Allows the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to require coverage of any and all abortions through the public option.
Creates new federally-funded subsidies for private health plans [...]

At 8:00 p.m. tomorrow night, the Senate is expected to vote on cloture on the Motion to Proceed to debate on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s pro-abortion health care bill.  Sixty Senators’ votes are needed for the bill to move forward.  While this vote has been touted by pro-abortion lawmakers as merely “procedural” in nature, [...]

Washington, DC – Today, in a vote of 59-39, the U.S. Senate confirmed pro-abortion federal judge David Hamilton as an appellate court judge.
Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest said, “Americans United for Life believes that judges should uphold Constitutional restrictions on abortion. As a District Court judge, Hamilton promoted his [...]

The confirmation of Judge David Hamilton to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals would be another step away from common ground by the President and the Democratic Senate. As a District Court Judge, his decisions are subject to review by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and they reversed him often.
The Court of Appeals ruled [...]

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid last night unveiled a health care bill which provides for an unprecedented expansion of federally-funded abortion. The bill includes pro-abortion language and mirrors the false compromise Capps Amendment from the House debate — it allows the public option to include abortion coverage and provides federal subsidies for private plans which [...]

As President Obama made his first official visit to China, new information on China’s “one-child policy” surfaced in the media.
In an article published last week, The Washington Post revealed that “monetary incentives and penalties are attached to population targets,” creating what amounts to “bounties on the unborn,” according to a 2009 State Department report. Technically, [...]

On Monday night, the Baltimore City Council, by a vote of 12 to 3, approved an ordinance requiring pregnancy care centers (PCCs) to posts signs indicating that they do not do abortions or provide contraception.  Failure to comply with the ordinance will incur a $150 per day fine.  A proposed amendment to require abortion clinics [...]

There have been many recent questions in the press and on Capitol Hill about the scope of the Stupak Amendment added to the House health care reform bill, H.R. 3962, and how it will impact private insurance plans.
The Stupak Amendment applies the same abortion funding restrictions to programs created by and funded through H.R. 3962 [...]

Earlier today, the U.S. Army preferred 13 charges and specifications of premeditated murder against Major Nidal Hasan.  This preliminary step does not and should not preclude the preferral of additional charges including a charge and specification for the killing of the unborn child of one of the victims of the Fort Hood massacre,  Private Francheska [...]

There are, of course, many unnamed victims of the attack at Fort Hood.  Spouses, parents, children, siblings, friends.  Each left to suffer and question why, on American soil, their loved one’s life was violently ended.
But there was another victim that has been frequently overlooked: the unborn child of soldier Francheska Velez.  When Hasan took Velez’s [...]

Massachusetts Attorney General (AG) Martha Coakley, a current Democrat candidate for the late Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat, strongly criticized the House health care bill for prohibiting federal funding of abortions.  The Boston Globe reported her saying that “fighting for a women’s access to abortion was more important than passing the overall bill, despite its [...]

Introduction
While pro-abortion groups claim that the Stupak Amendment, added to H.R. 3962 by a vote of 240-194, with 64 Democrats voting in favor of the amendment, is broader than existing federal law, they are incorrect.  In reality, the Stupak Amendment, which ensures that funds authorized and appropriated through the bill will not pay for abortions [...]

On Nov. 7, 2009, the House passed H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act by a vote of 220-215.  One Republican, Joseph Cao (R-LA), voted in favor of the bill.  The bill will incorporate the Stupak-Pitts amendment, which bans use of federal funding for abortion and prohibits the public option from covering abortion [...]

On Nov. 7, 2009, the House defeated the Republican health care reform substitute bill by a vote of 176 to 258.

On Nov. 7, 2009, the House passed the Stupak-Pitts amendment by a vote of 240-194. 64 Democrats voted in favor of the amendment, and one Republican, Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ), voted present.
List of Dems voting Yes include:
Altmire, Baca, Barrow, Berry, Bishop (GA), Boccieri, Boren, Bright, Cardoza, Carney, Chandler, Childers, Cooper, Costa, Costello, Cuellar, Dahlkemper, Davis [...]

Statements are paraphrased.
Stupak: Capps Amendment is the most direct assault on Hyde since 1997.
DeGette: Capps Amendment is a compromise that does not spend $1 federal dollar on abortion. Requirement for supplemental insurance is offensive to women.
Pitts: The public does not support federal funding of abortion. Current law prevents fed. dollars from paying for abortion and [...]

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) stated on the House floor that all three Chairmen of the Committees of jurisdiction, Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Henry Waxman (D-CA), Chairman of the Education and Labor Committee George Miller (D-CA), and Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee Charlie Rangel (D-NY) refused to offer assurances that [...]

The bill being debated right now in the House, H.R. 3962, contains several problematic anti-life provisions.
Below is AUL’s legal analysis of the abortion provisions in the bill, as well as an analysis of the conscience protection, Comparative Effectiveness Research, and End-of-life provisions in the bill.
I. Abortion
The House health care bill, H.R. 3962 includes the same [...]

At 1:43 pm on Nov. 7, 2009, the House of Representatives voted to approve H.Res. 903, the Rule under which Democratic leadership will bring H.R. 3962, the Affordable Healthcare for America bill, to the House floor. (Roll Call vote No. 882)  The voted was approved by a vote of 242-192.
The House will now begin debating [...]

An editorial in the Washington Post today asserted, “The controversy over abortion funding is similarly phony. Federal law prohibits the use of federal money for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or where the life of the mother is endangered. The House bill would leave that restriction in place. It would exclude abortion from [...]

Americans United for Life’s legislative arm Americans United for Life Action endorses a key vote today on the House floor of the Stupak-Ellsworth-Pitts-Kaptur-Dahlkemper-Lipinski-Smith Amendment, an Amendment that blocks any federal money from going to abortion in health care reform.
Americans United for Life Action’s President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest said, “Americans United for Life Action [...]

On Tuesday we reported that the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) would be considering whether to once again delay implementation of the Illinois parental notification law.  For a short while on Wednesday, pro-lifers felt victorious: rather than further delay enforcement, as we expected, the IDFPR allowed the law to go into effect.
Unfortunately, [...]

On Friday the House Rules Committee is expected to report out a rule governing debate on H.R. 3962, the House health care reform bill.  It is likely that this rule will include language called the “Ellsworth Amendment,” after Congressman Brad Ellsworth of Indiana.  This language is being touted as a pro-life amendment.  In reality, the [...]

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found a Pittsburg ordinance restricting access to public areas around abortion clinics unconstitutional.  More specifically, the court held the ordinance to be “insufficiently tailored” because it “burdens substantially more speech than necessary” to achieve the City’s stated interest: to prevent “harassment and obstruction of [...]

Yesterday, the House Rules Committee announced that the “rule” for considering the sweeping health care legislation will encompass the language put forward by Rep. Brad Ellsworth, D-Ind. that the House leadership is falsely describing as pro-life. By allowing the Ellsworth language, House Democratic leaders hope to address the reluctance of pro-life Democrats to vote for [...]

In her blog entry on The Daily Beast, Dana Goldstein records pro-abortion leader Judy Waxman’s incredible statement that the new House health care bill, H.R. 3962, “leans toward the pro-life position.”  To support this conclusion Goldstein’s entry relies on statements from several abortion rights advocates.  However, the current version of the House bill is neither [...]

A woman is far more likely to choose life if she sees an ultrasound of her unborn child, which is why AUL has long promoted laws requiring abortion clinics to give clients the opportunity to view their ultrasound. Now, it appears that an ultrasound can change the heart of an abortion-clinic director as well. Last [...]

Minors in Illinois have been unprotected from the harms of abortion for decades.  The legislature passed a parental notice law in 1995, a law substantially similar to the 36 other state laws requiring either parental notice or consent.  But of course, the ACLU had to step in and challenge the law.  And until the Seventh [...]

Update:  On November 7, 2009, the Stupak-Pitts amendment was added to H.R. 3962 on the House Floor. The Stupak-Pitts amendment resolves the abortion and conscience concerns in the House bill discussed below [Note, these concerns have not been resolved in the Senate bill].  For more information, please see:

http://blog.aul.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Stupak-Pitts-Backgrounder.pdf

and
http://blog.aul.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Comparision-Chart-b-t-Hyde-and-Stupak.pdf
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Oct. 30, 2009
The new version of health [...]

Statement by Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest:
“Just as Americans United for Life had expected, the new House health care bill unveiled this morning includes the Capps Amendment language added during the Energy and Commerce Committee mark-up.  This bill will explicitly allow federal funding of abortion through the public option and [...]

Today, at the same time that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was unveiling the new House health care reform bill, Americans United for Life’s legislative arm AUL Action sent a letter to members of the House of Representatives to express our deep concern over the life-related provisions in the bill.  Just as we expected, the “new” [...]

In September, President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress and said “under our plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion.” Currently, however, all three health care reform proposals in Congress mandate abortion funding to varying degrees.  Recognizing this, President Obama now seeks to clarify that by “our plan” he did not [...]

In August, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton highlighted sex-selection abortions as an abuse against women in India and China saying, “unfortunately with technology, parents are able to use sonograms to determine the sex of a baby, and to abort girl children simply because they’d rather have a boy.”
But sex-selection abortions are not a phenomenon foreign [...]

Senate Majority Leader Reid announced that he will include a “public option“ (government-run insurance plan) in the final Senate health care reform bill.  While the language of the final Senate bill, like the final House bill, is not available for public consumption, it is not hard to predict what the inclusion of a “public option” [...]

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday that a Los Angeles man, Joshua Woodward, has been arrested for the intentional homicide of his unborn child. As public comments on the case posted to the online Chronicle story show, this kind of prosecution provokes public confusion. Here are some answers to questions not addressed in the [...]

Buried in an Associated Press story last week on President Obama’s health care reform agenda was a fact that counters misleading statements from the White House: The Hyde Amendment does not protect American taxpayers from funding abortions through ObamaCare.
The AP reports:
The main point of contention is the proposed new federal subsidies that would help lower-income [...]

Today, an Associated Press article highlighted the division among Democrats in the House of Representatives over abortion in health care reform.  The article accurately describes several of the reasons why pro-life members of Congress are not satisfied with the “Capps Amendment” (language added to the House bill during the Energy and Commerce Committee mark-up):
1) The [...]

When President Obama was on the campaign trail, he promised Planned Parenthood that the “first thing” he would do as President would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA)–a bill that would strike down all regulations on abortion, denying Americans their rights of conscience, and forcing taxpayers to fund the destruction of unborn [...]

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Introduction

Soon after taking office, President Obama made it a top priority to reverse a regulation that allows health care providers the right to refuse to perform services to which they object. The regulation, issued by executive order by the Bush Administration and finalized on December 19, 2008,[1] broadens the application of [...]

LifeNews reports that the Obama administration’s official volunteerism Web site, Serve.gov, encourages visitors to put in hours at Planned Parenthood.
Journalist Lisa Staub discovered the government site’s promotion of the abortion giant when she typed the keyword “health” and the city “Houston” into its search engine, which is intended to connect prospective volunteers with service organizations [...]

If Congressional leaders have their way, sweeping health care reform legislation will force American taxpayers to fund abortion-on-demand. A few days ago I had a chance to explain this to the country in an article in The Wall Street Journal entitled: “Tax Dollars [...]

HERE are the Facts
Media Matters stated: “In a new anti-choice ad, the conservative Americans United for Life presents several nuggets of misinformation regarding how abortion is being treated in Democratic proposals for health care reform.  Because they lack any factual grounds for their argument, the group resorts to ominous music, sarcasm, and misdirection.”
Our Response: All [...]

There have been many promises made during the health care debate in Congress, from President Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and many others that no federal funding will go to abortion in health care reform. They claim they are merely maintaining the “status quo.” Yesterday, in the Wall Street Journal, AUL President and [...]

In today’s edition of Church Report, AUL Staff Counsel Anna Franzonello responds to a report by the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute that blames certain countries’ restrictive abortion laws for a high rate of deaths and complications from clandestine abortion in those countries.
The report’s conclusions are “ideologically driven by the Guttmacher Institute’s abortion-promoting agenda,” Franzonello writes. [...]

My first column for the Knights of Columbus Web site HeadlineBistro.com, published today, tells the story of Ashli Foshee McCall, who emerged from personal tragedy to help others avoid making the mistake she made.
In 1996, Ashli Foshee McCall, 25 years old, married and pregnant with her first child, was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), an [...]

Washington D.C. — Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President and CEO of Americans United for Life, made the following statement Tuesday regarding the Finance Committee vote on health care reform:
“The Senate Finance Committee has joined the four other committees with jurisdiction over health care reform in reporting out a bill that does not include explicit language excluding [...]

On Wednesday, October 14, AUL Action, the legislative action arm of Americans United for Life, will be releasing an online ad, “Don’t Be Fooled: Abortion is in Health Care Reform,” to raise awareness among the pro-life grassroots about taxpayer-funded abortion in the current health care reform proposals. The ad is a part of Americans United [...]

With all the twists and turns in the health care debate, we keep hearing the question: what’s next? So I wanted to take a minute and sketch out for you what we know from our meetings here in the Nation’s Capital and on the Hill.
Next week, the Senate Finance Committee is poised to vote out [...]

This week, the Senate Finance Committee is expected to report (vote) out of Committee Chairman Baucus’ version of health care reform.  Like the other four Committees (three in the House and one in the Senate) that have reported out health care reform bills, the Senate Finance Committee failed to include in the legislation language that [...]

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal in Choose Life Illinois v. White, upholding a Seventh Circuit ruling that the Illinois system for approving specialty plates was not discriminatory.
The case was filed in 2004 after citizens had collected more than the requisite number of signatures, but were denied a “Choose Life” license [...]

A new poll from the Pew Research Center shows that support for legalized abortion has dropped to its lowest level in years. In the past year, the number of Americans who said abortion should be legal in most or all cases dropped from 54 percent to 47 percent,  and pollsters note the shift “could be [...]

On the heels of recent surveys demonstrating that a majority of Americans are increasingly identifying themselves as pro-life, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed a lower court’s decision muzzling the free speech rights of pro-life citizens in Illinois to stand.
The State of Illinois has done nothing less than censor its pro-life citizens.  Despite the fact [...]

Today Family Research Council released its report, A Passion to Serve, A Vision for Life, highlighting the contributions of pregnancy resource centers (PRCs) over the last 40 years.  The release comes at an interesting time – the President is attempting to make abortion a recognized form of “health care,” and we are seeing increasing attacks [...]

WASHINGTON — Today, in a vote of 10-13 in the Senate Finance Committee, the Hatch Amendment #C14 was defeated.  The amendment would have explicitly prohibited federal funding and coverage of abortions.  The Committee also voted down an amendment by Senator Hatch that would have prevented discrimination against any individual or entity who refused to provide, [...]

It was reported last week that, for the first time, surgeons in the U.K. have successfully treated an extremely ill heart patient with a combination of an artificial heart and his own stem cells.  The patient was fitted with a mechanical pump and then injected with 6 million of his own stem cells, in hope [...]

This article was published with permission from Culture of Life Foundation. To view the original publication, see their website.
By Jessica Sage
AUL Staff Counsel
Brenda Vise, a 38-year old pharmaceutical representative, died on September 12, 2001.  Holly Patterson, an 18-year old student, died on September 17, 2003.  Chanelle Bryant, 22-years old, died on January 14, 2004.  Vivian [...]

Summary
During the July 30th House Energy and Commerce Committee mark-up, Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA.) and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) offered amendments to H.R. 3200 that would have prohibited abortion funding and coverage in the House health care reform bill.  These amendments were defeated.
Instead, the Committee approved an amendment offered by Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) by [...]

A significant moment arrived in the hearing this morning as Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis) turned to questioning Judge Sotomayor, albeit briefly, on the abortion issue and the “right to privacy” underlying Roe v. Wade.  Sotomayor replied that she does agree that Roe is “settled law” as follows:
KOHL: All right. Judge, the court’s ruling about the [...]

We have spent the last few weeks leading up to this week’s hearing in meetings with senators on the Judiciary Committee and their staffers, on both sides of the aisle, presenting them with the research that the AUL legal team has done on Judge Sotomayor’s pro-abortion advocacy.  This morning, we had the opportunity to meet [...]

3:02 p.m. – The nominee ends her statement in less than the ten minutes she was allotted. Leahy calls a break in the hearing until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow morning. Liveblogging will resume then. In the meantime, check back at the AUL Blog for more commentary on the Sotomayor nomination and other life issues in the [...]

This is the fifth entry in a series on FOCA by Stealth by AUL Vice President of Legal Affairs, Denise M. Burke. The entire article from which this series is taken is available at Beware of “FOCA-By-Stealth”: Radical Abortion-on-Demand Agenda Being Implemented Piecemeal.
Executive Appointments
The President has the responsibility to make a wide range of executive [...]

Chicago, IL ““ Americans United for Life (AUL) today filed comments with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) supporting the retention of a December 2008 rule providing a much-needed enforcement mechanism for federal laws protecting healthcare freedom of conscience.
Dr. Charmaine Yoest, AUL President & CEO stated, “Congress has a 36-year history of passing [...]

Today, the US Senate voted 39-55 to reject Senator Roger Wicker’s attempt to protect US taxpayers from funding coercive abortions through the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), especially in countries such as China that have policies limiting family size.
The Wicker Amendment would have restored the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, which has been in place since 1985.  Kemp-Kasten [...]

On January 6, Senator Harry Reid introduced the Prevention First Act (S. 21) (“the Act”), which disingenuously claims to be aimed at reducing unintended pregnancies and abortion.  What it in reality does is provide continued (and elevated) funding to family planning programs that provide and counsel in favor of abortion, mandates health coverage of contraception, [...]

In the January 17, 2009 (Roe v. Wade) edition of World magazine, Marvin Olasky pays tribute to former AUL President Guy Condon. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, Condon spearheaded efforts within the pro-life movement to correct the public’s perception of the movement and to focus public attention on the damage the abortion [...]

AUL has received final approval for this year’s Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) workplace-based giving program. Our number will remain the same as last year: 11416.
The Combined Federal Campaign is just one of the ways that you can help support the work of AUL. A complete list is available at http://www.aul.org/Support_AUL, or click the button below.

  
As [...]

AUL’s Golf for Life
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Seven Bridges Golf Club – Woodridge, IL.
Early Bird Registration (before May 5)

One Player
$125

Foursome
$400

Dinner Only
$40

Pricing includes 18 holes of golf with a cart, box lunch, reception, and dinner.
Sponsorships available from $100 to $10,000
Schedule

Registration and Box Lunch
11:30 AM

Shotgun Start
1:15 PM

Reception
5:30 PM

Dinner and Awards
6:00 PM

For more information or to register [...]

On March 18, the Northern District of California dismissed the State’s challenge to the federal Hyde-Weldon Amendment. In the case State of California v. United States, the court granted summary judgment to the federal government.
The Hyde-Weldon Amendment prohibits federal funds from being used by any state or local government that forces healthcare providers to [...]

Americans United for Life is co-sponsoring with The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity a conference on aging, death, and immortality March 6-8 in Phoenix.
The Conference Will Equip Participants to:

Understand the clinical and social experience of aging, especially in the American context.
Anticipate developments in the near future of healthcare, science, biotechnology, medical law, [...]

SAVE THE DATE!
Congressional Representatives Daniel Lipinski (D-IL) and Doug Lamborn (R-CO) will be hosting AUL as we distribute copies of our landmark legal guide Defending Life 2008 on Capitol Hill.
WHAT: Defending Life 2008 Luncheon
WHEN: April 3, 2008, 12:30 – 1:30pm
WHERE: 2105 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC
RSVP is required. Call 312-492-7234 if [...]

On Tuesday, February 19, the Missouri House Committee on Healthcare Policy considered HB 1831, a bill enhancing Missouri’s informed consent before abortion statute. In addition to requiring that women be informed of the medical risks of abortion, HB 1831 also requires that women receive information on the availability of ultrasound, as well as information on [...]

Governor Eliot Spitzer’s “Freedom of Choice Act” (FOCA), also called the “Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act” (RHAPP), has kindled a fiery debate in New York. Democratic Senator Ruben Diaz (Bronx) declared earlier this month that the RHAPP “is one of the most dangerous and radical pieces of proposed legislation in New York State that [...]

At the end of January, Pope Benedict gave an address to plenary session of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The full text of the speech is now available in English on the Vatican website.
His remarks on bioethics were near the end of the address:
I also ask you, dear friends, to pay special [...]

Sunday’s New York Times Book Review carried a review of Embryo: A Defense of Human Life. The reviewer, Slate.com’s bioethics writer/reporter William Saletan, is someone that I generally respect as a thoughtful writer, even though I don’t always agree with him. His review of Embryo, though, is an unusually poor showing.
In response to the review, [...]

Defending Life 2008: Proven Strategies for a Pro-Life America is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and hardback.
 
 
 
 
 

Disability advocates, medical professionals, pro-life advocates, and other opponents of physician-assisted suicide have filed a lawsuit to stop a proposed Washington ballot initiative legalizing the practice.
The Coalition Against Assisted Suicide maintains that the wording of Initiative 1000 fails to inform voters of all the potential changes to state law and argues that it not only [...]

All 50 state supreme court whitepapers have been posted at AULStateSupremeCourtProject.org! We will continue to update the papers as situations change in the states.
The AUL State Supreme Court Project is just one way that we are preparing for the day after Roe. Explore our main website, AUL.org, for more information on our work.

Sorrel Mason, age 2, had a rare cancer – acute myeloid leukemia – and had a 30% chance of survival. After a failed search across America and Europe to find a suitable bone marrow tissue donor, a partial match was finally found in umbilical stem cells from Japan. A bone marrow transplant was successfully performed [...]

In addition to the two whitepapers posted this morning (Idaho and Louisiana), the following whitepapers were posted this afternoon:

Florida
Hawaii
Maryland
Minnesota
New Mexico

This bring the number of state supreme court whitepapers now available at AULStateSupremeCourtProject.org to 47.

Delaware Court of Chancery Master Sam Glasscock III issued a ruling January 24, 2008, that could result in the withdrawal of Lauren Marie Richardson’s feeding tube.
Twenty-three year-old Lauren Marie Richardson suffered severe brain damage after a heroine overdose in August 2007. She was kept alive with feeding tubes and a ventilator, and successfully delivered a [...]

AUL was pleased to be able to co-sponsor this year’s Blogs for Life conference. The conference was held at the offices of the Family Research Council (FRC) and live streamed on their blog.
FRC has now posted video of the following presentations, including our own Maggie Datiles. The following links will take you directly to the [...]

New legislation under consideration in New Hampshire would require guidance counselors or healthcare providers to counsel teenage girls before they undergo an abortion, but effectively denies parents or guardians the right to be consulted and involved in this major medical decision.
In 2007, New Hampshire lawmakers repealed the state’s parental notification statute that required an abortion [...]

On January 28, the Ninth Circuit issued a unanimous opinion in Arizona Life Coalition v. Stanton.* The Plaintiff, Arizona Life Coalition, filed the suit after the state refused to issue a Choose Life license plate under the statutory guidelines.
In sum, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the Choose Life plates constitute private speech, and therefore the [...]

As we noted in the press release on the 35th anniversary of Roe, the five most well-documented medical risks from abortion are:

A heightened risk of pre-term birth in future pregnancy
An increased incidence of alcohol and drug abuse
An increased risk of suicide
A heightened risk of placenta previa in future pregnancies
The loss of protective effect against breast [...]

The Nebraska whitepaper has just been posted, and the Tennessee whitepaper has just been updated at AULStateSupremeCourtProject.org.

Several recent news items have commented on and examined several movies and other pop-culture artifacts from 2007 where characters chose life instead of abortion.
Rick Santorum earlier this month had an op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquierer:
If art is a reflection of our culture, our culture – and particularly our youth culture – is awaking to the [...]

One of my colleagues just pointed out to me the President’s National Sanctity of Human Life Day, 2008 proclamation. It’s well worth your time to read all five paragraphs, but I wanted to point out one sentence in particular:
On National Sanctity of Human Life Day and throughout the year, we help strengthen the culture of [...]

Steve Chapman’s latest column weighs in on the recent news that abortion rates continue to fall, pointing out that it is a combination of legislation and education that is responsible.
By now, pro-life groups know that outlawing most abortions is not a plausible aspiration. So they have adopted a two-pronged strategy. The first is to regulate [...]

The Nevada whitepaper has just been posted, and the New Jersey whitepaper has been updated.
This brings the total number of state supreme court whitepapers to 38.
AULStateSupremeCourtProject.org

Priests for Life and the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation have established March 31st of every year as the “International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Schiavo and All of Our Vulnerable Brothers and Sisters,” or simply, “Terri’s Day.” This coming March 31st, 2008 will mark the third anniversary of Terri’s death by dehydration. [...]

UPDATE: DEADLINE EXTENDED TO FEBRUARY 15.
Just a reminder that the application deadline for the AUL Legal Fellowship Program is February 1.
About the AUL Legal Fellowship Program
The AUL Summer Fellowship Program combines top flight legal work with public interest commitment. Each fellow will be mentored by an AUL attorney who will regularly meet with [...]

Last week, a number of pro-life groups, including Americans United for Life, sent a letter (below) to President Bush requesting that implement regulations that would keep U.S. taxpayer funds (Title X family planning services) from being used to promote and facilitate abortion.
Dear President Bush:
On behalf of the undersigned groups we thank you for strongly supporting [...]

The 34th AUL State Supreme Court Project whitepaper, Arkansas (PDF), has just been posted at AULStateSupremeCourtProject.org

TIME has published an article on the study linking abortion to subsequent low birth weight and preterm birth.
Abortions increase the risk of low birth weight in future pregnancies by a factor of three, and of premature birth by a factor of two, according to the largest U.S. study of its kind.
. . .
The study [...]

We’ve just posted the Tennessee whitepaper, which is the thirty-third of 50 papers to be posted.
Visit AULStateSupremeCourtProject.org to see the complete list.

Americans United for Life today is one of several national organizations signing a letter responding to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Committee on Ethics position statement, “The Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Medicine (PDF).”
The letter, drafted by Christian Medical Association, points out that the ACOG position statement “suggests a profound misunderstanding [...]

Christianity Today reviews a new film that is one of several making 2007 “the year of the unplanned pregnancy at the multiplex.” Opening today, Juno is the story of a high school girl with an unplanned pregnancy who decides not to have an abortion (in the waiting room of an abortion clinic).
Like other films in [...]

Technology Vindicates Morality
Exactly

Chicago, Illinois November 29: We are saddened by the death of Congressman Henry J. Hyde (retired), Honorary Chairman of Americans United for Life (AUL). He passed away on Thursday, November 29, 2007. Our deepest sympathies go to his wife and family.
“Henry Hyde will always be an inspiring model of commitment to public service and the [...]

National Review Online today published an article by AUL President Clarke Forsythe and AUL Vice President & Legal Director Denise Burke on state human life amendments (HLAs).
Pro-life activists in a few states are now exploring the merits of amending their state constitution by ballot initiative with a state “human life amendment.” In considering the prudence [...]

Application Deadline for Spring 2008 Semester is January 2, 2008
Americans United for Life (AUL), a national public interest law and policy organization defending human life through vigorous legislative, judicial, and educational efforts, seeks highly-qualified and motivated law students to serve as legal externs during the Spring 2008 semester. The externships are unpaid and may be [...]

Extending Life: Setting the Agenda for the Ethics of Aging, Death, and Immortality–A Conference, Institutes, and Seminars on bioethics
Institutes – March 3-6, 2008
Conference – March 6-8, 2008
Featuring:

Plenary Speakers
Informal Networking
Public Debate
Special Keynote Dinner

The conference will equip participants to:

Understand the clinical and social experience of aging, especially in the American context.
Anticipate developments in the near future of [...]

About the AUL Legal Fellowship Program
The AUL Summer Fellowship Program combines top flight legal work with public interest commitment. Each fellow will be mentored by an AUL attorney who will regularly meet with the fellow to answer questions, give feedback on work performance, and help further augment the value of their experience. The [...]

MercatorNet is an excellent online publication from Australia that covers a variety of topics. In the past week they’ve had a trio of worthy articles on life issues.

Shameful anniversary, sham inquiry. Forty years ago Britain passed a law that has facilitated 6.7 million abortions. A government inquiry has seen to it that nothing will change.
Making [...]