Tag Archive for: Chemical Abortion

10 Beautiful Bills for a Better America

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As Congress debates major issues regarding taxes, tariffs, and trade, it would be heartening for faith, family, and freedom Americans if it found time to pass topical bills that address other pressing concerns such as protecting unborn life, dismantling taxpayer-funded abortion, conscience protections, and more.

A number of these measures have been introduced in diverse forms in past Congresses indisposed to adopt them. Others are ideas whose time had not yet come. But in these still-early days of the 119th Congress, the two chambers of Congress, one of which had time for Senator Cory Booker’s (D-N.J.) around-the-clock oration, might well find room on their schedules to debate measures that accommodate conscience, support mothers and families, and protect an underappreciated national responsibility — the collection and analysis of social metrics.

Here are 10 measures that fit this general description, with the acknowledgement that they are only a sample of proposals that are within striking distance of adoption and worthy of congressional attention even in a crowded calendar.

Hawley Child Tax Credit Expansion

Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) champions an expansion of the child tax credit, a longtime bipartisan proposition, to $5,000 from its current value of $2,000 per child. The credit would reportedly be refundable against payroll taxes, be available during the year in which the child was conceived, and be paid out over the course of the year rather than remitted as a lump sum at tax time.

S. 4524, Lankford Conscience Protection Act of 2024

Reintroduced most recently in June 2024, legislation like this is urgently needed in an environment where existing federal conscience protections languished unenforced in the Biden years, and states like Illinois and Washington are moving to require physicians or pregnancy centers to refer for abortions against their convictions that these actions are morally and ethically wrong. S. 4524 would have reinforced several existing federal conscience laws and grant individuals and institutions a private right of action to assert their conscience claims in federal court. The proposed law would clarify that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must investigate alleged conscience violations and can suspend federal funds for health-related services if the violators do not respect conscience.

H.R. 796, Miller Second Chance for Moms Act

Introduced on January 28, 2025 by Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.), this legislation would amend the basic federal food, drug, and cosmetics legislation to require the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to mandate a warning label be placed on the abortion drug mifepristone. The warning label would advise women of the availability of an abortion pill reversal (APR) protocol that can often rescue their baby after the woman has taken the drug. It would require the secretary of HHS to create or contract with a 24/7, toll-free hotline to advise women on how to access abortion pill reversal with referrals limited solely to providers of APR.

H.R. 7, Smith No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2025

Introduced on January 22, 2025, Rep. Christopher Smith’s (R-N.J.) bill is an expanded version of previous anti-funding measures and now has 81 House of Representatives co-sponsors. The bill would make permanent the terms of the Hyde Amendment, which permits funding of abortion only in cases of rape, incest, or where a physical disorder, injury, or illness would threaten a woman’s life. It would apply to the full sweep of Hyde Amendment provisions applicable now to annual spending bills. H.R. 7 would also bar federal subsidies for the portion of health insurance premiums that pay for abortion coverage.

H.R. 271 and 272, Fischbach Defund Planned Parenthood and Protecting Life and Taxpayers Acts

These measures, introduced on January 14, 2025, would prohibit Planned Parenthood from accessing any discretionary or mandatory federal funds because of its immersion in the provision and promotion of abortion. The Protecting Life Act would require all federally-funded entities to certify that they will not carry out abortions or provide funds to any other entity that carries out abortions beyond the terms permitted by the Hyde Amendment. The Senate version of the Defund Planned Parenthood Act, S. 203, was introduced on January 23, 2025 by Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and has 11 co-sponsors. In addition, a coalition of 150 pro-life groups has called on Congress to cut funding for Planned Parenthood in the upcoming budget reconciliation bill.

S. 334, Risch American Values Act

This bill carries forward pro-life foreign assistance policy. Introduced on January 30, 2025 by Senator James Risch (R-Idaho), the bill would amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to ensure that no appropriated funds may be used to pay for abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to be sterilized. The bill would also bar the use of funds to pay for biomedical research related to techniques of induced abortion or coerced sterilization. The bill has a dozen co-sponsors.

H.R. 627/S. 178, Norman-Ernst Ensuring Accurate and Complete Abortion Data Reporting Act of 2025

Introduced by Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) on the House side and Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) in the Senate, this is a critical piece of legislation that will ensure the demographic and some health implications of induced abortion are tracked and analyzable to the extent possible in a national, public framework. The urgency of this legislation, which would redress a half century of voluntary and incomplete national reporting, is all the greater thanks to the rapid expansion of chemical abortion conducted with little to no medical evaluation or supervision. The bill notes the disturbing facts that not a single data point regarding abortion is publicly available for all 50 states, and that three states, constituting 15% of U.S. abortion volume, share no reports at all with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

H.R. 578, Roy FACE Act Repeal Act of 2025

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has led the fight against the much-abused Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a law that was weaponized during the Biden administration to target right-to-life demonstrators with vindictive prosecutions and harsh penalties. President Trump, as one of his initial executive actions, pardoned men and women, including grandmothers, who had been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for engaging in protests, while making little or no progress in identifying or prosecuting individuals who attacked churches and pregnancy help centers. Absent repeal of this legislation, Roy says, biased enforcement will promptly resume in a future administration. “Data my office obtained from Merrick Garland’s DOJ showed that 97% of FACE Act prosecutions from 1994-2024 were against pro-life Americans.”

H.R. 722, Burlison, Life at Conception Act

The United States has seen a recent spike in abortions, beginning before the 2022 Dobbs ruling but continuing in its wake, with one source reporting that our nation’s abortion toll has risen to more than one million abortions per year. As Congress and the states look for ways to support mothers, the fact remains that for much of the country, the legal status of the unborn is a void that must be filled. It is lawful in much of the land to dismember a child in the womb; to destroy a child in the third trimester or a human embryo because it is affected by Down syndrome or is not the preferred sex; to set aside a child born alive and deny him or her life-saving care; to use public funds to pay for and promote abortion; to leave a woman alone in a bathroom to expel the new life from her womb; or to ship abortion drugs across state lines with little or no medical support.

To address these wrongs, legislation is needed that not only delivers unprecedented levels of support for men and women to act for the good of their child, but to safeguard each and every innocent life. The Life at Conception Act, with 73 co-sponsors, faces a steep challenge in this Congress but it too would be a beautiful bill, one with the added virtue of honoring our best hope for a better future for America.

AUTHOR

Chuck Donovan

Chuck Donovan served in the Reagan White House as a senior writer and as Deputy Director of Presidential Correspondence until early 1989. He was executive vice president of Family Research Council, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, and founder/president of Charlotte Lozier Institute from 2011 to 2024. He has written and spoken extensively on issues in life and family policy.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Proclaiming Life: That No More Generations May Be Lost

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This Wednesday, January 22, 2025, is the 52nd anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. Less than three years ago, a changed court reversed the abortion decisions in the Dobbs case. On the ground, however, the toll of abortion in the United States remains high, fueled by unlimited abortion in a number of states and an evolution in abortion procedures via the distribution of the abortion drug mifepristone with few health standards and requirements, as prescribed by the U.S Food and Drug Administration.

January 22 is also just the third day of the second administration of Donald J. Trump. President Trump enters office in a somewhat different posture from that of his first term in 2017. The president’s stance on abortion is considerably different from what it was eight years ago, with his stated pledge to veto any federal ban on abortion, opposition to the most protective pro-life laws in the states, and avowed intention not to alter the FDA’s approval of the abortion pill.

There remain, however, a number of actions that Congress and the president can take to reinstate pro-life policies from his first term, particularly on domestic and international abortion funding, conscience rights for pro-life doctors and entities, child tax credits, and funding for the massive abortion provider Planned Parenthood.

What might this week bring in terms of administration statements on abortion? What does history tell us about the expressed convictions of avowedly pro-life presidents, of whom we have had four from 1981 to the present? A quick scan of the dozens of executive orders issued by President Trump so far shows a few that may have pro-life implications, particularly the 90-day pause in foreign assistance to permit a review of their consistency with America First goals. A second action with pro-life import is the announced withdrawal of the United States from the thoroughly pro-abortion World Health Organization, whose actions hostile to human life have been described in a prior article in this space.

President Trump has repeatedly said in the past few days that more actions are coming. Given that this week brings both the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and the national March for Life (January 24), what else might the new administration do to highlight its position on the sanctity of human life? In addition to policy steps, the traditional means for these expressions include attendance by the president or senior administration officials at pro-life events or, more commonly, the issuance of a Presidential Proclamation declaring National Sanctity of Human Life Day. The latter form of support for a pro-life nation has been consistent since the practice was initiated by President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

So what is a presidential proclamation? These documents are signed by the president and can be issued at any time during the year, usually to commemorate a particular observance. They are typically done at the request of one or both houses of Congress, which adopt a resolution urging the president to recognize a special period.

Some proclamations are annual and others are one-off occasions, owing to the unique nature of the observance or the natural limit on proclamations — which is to say, the White House typically prefers not to dilute these commemoratives by issuing them on multiple topics day after day (the average number of proclamations issued for the past three decades is 143 per year). Proclamations can honor such observances as National Down Syndrome Awareness Month or less weighty matters such as National Ice Cream Month and National Ice Cream Day (in July, naturally).

In contrast, the Presidential Proclamations for National Sanctity of Human Life Day have a far more substantive history. First, of course, the proclamations are not lawmaking or policy-setting. They are vision statements, setting forth the principles that guide a president’s actions, from executive orders, to policy memoranda, to legislative proposals, to presidential personnel, and more.

Since 1984, when the first presidential proclamation on abortion was issued by Ronald Reagan, there has been a total of 22 such proclamations issued by four chief executives: Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald J. Trump. The issuances have been remarkably consistent. Each Republican president has issued an annual proclamation covering his four or eight years in office. No Democratic president has ever issued one. Because they are not policy documents per se (though they may express a view), the proclamations are not rescinded by subsequent presidents but remain as persuasive documents of a hortatory character.

The first National Sanctity of Human Life Proclamation was promulgated on January 13, 1984, and it designated January 22, 1984, the 11th anniversary of Roe, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. Unlike most presidential proclamations, this one was not requested by congressional resolution. Rather, the idea was originated by the Rev. Curtis J. Young, at that time the executive director of the Christian Action Council (CAC), the forerunner of Care Net, one of the largest pregnancy center networks in the United States. Young led the establishment of scores of pregnancy centers and is the author of “The Least of These: What Everyone Should Know About Abortion,” one of the first books to make the compelling case for life from a biblical, moral, and social perspective. The CAC was in its first years a policy and communications group, founded by a coalition of distinguished evangelical leaders such as the Rev. Billy Graham, C. Everett Koop, and Harold O.J. Brown. That first date for the observance fell on a Sunday and one goal was to foster recollection, prayer, and action within the churches about the value of every human life.

Now, 41 years later, this tradition of presidential proclamations continues to serve a high purpose. Each of the four presidents who have followed the tradition has had a distinct style, but there is much in common among the documents. President Reagan’s first proclamation, No. 5147, went directly to the nation’s founding document: “The values and freedoms we cherish as Americans rest on our fundamental commitment to the sanctity of human life. The first of the ‘unalienable rights’ affirmed by our Declaration of Independence is the right to life itself, a right the Declaration states has been endowed by our Creator on all human beings — whether young or old, weak or strong, healthy or handicapped.” As has become standard in the proclamations, Reagan called “upon the citizens of this blessed land to gather on that day in homes and places of worship to give thanks for the gift of life, and to reaffirm our commitment to the dignity of every human being and the sanctity of each human life.”

Reagan issued a similar proclamation each of the following five years of his presidency, hailing the new achievements in perinatal care, praising abortion alternatives, and calling for legal protections at every level of government for the unborn. His 1988 Proclamation, the second to last of his time in office, was particularly notable. Tracking the language of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Reagan’s text came to be called a “proclamation of personhood” for the unborn. He wrote:

“Our Nation cannot continue down the path of abortion, so radically at odds with our history, our heritage, and our concepts of justice. This sacred legacy, and the well-being and the future of our country, demand that protection of the innocents must be guaranteed and that the personhood of the unborn be declared and defended throughout our land. In legislation introduced at my request in the First Session of the 100th Congress, I have asked the Legislative branch to declare the ‘humanity of the unborn child and the compelling interest of the several states to protect the life of each person before birth.’ This duty to declare on so fundamental a matter falls to the Executive as well. By this Proclamation I hereby do so.”

The next four proclamations were issued by George H. W. Bush, and they evince a similar spirit. In his 1990 proclamation, President Bush hailed our nation’s spectrum of concern to preserve and protect vulnerable lives, whatever the threat. He championed the scientists and physicians providing care and seeking cures, promoted adoption, and cited the Declaration. He wrote: “On this day, we also thank God for the advances in medicine that have improved the care of unborn children in the womb and premature babies. These scientific advances reinforce the belief that unborn children are persons, entitled to medical care and legal protection.”

The next presidential elections brought the Clinton years and pitched battles over the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Winning the fight for this limit on a particularly grotesque form of abortion, that destroys a living baby by crushing its skull and vacuuming out its brains, fell to President Bush’s son, George W. Bush. In the last of his eight annual proclamations on National Sanctity of Human Life Day, the younger Bush recited his considerable accomplishments in signing into law the ban on partial-birth abortions, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act protecting the right to life of the child in the womb, and the original Born Alive Infants Protection Act.

He wrote in the proclamation’s first words: “All human life is a gift from our Creator that is sacred, unique, and worthy of protection. On National Sanctity of Human Life Day, our country recognizes that each person, including every person waiting to be born, has a special place and purpose in this world. We also underscore our dedication to heeding this message of conscience by speaking up for the weak and voiceless among us.”

President Trump sustained these commitments in his Proclamations on National Sanctity of Human Life Day from 2018 to 2021. He called on Congress to act to limit late-term abortion and poetically ended his proclamation stating: “Today, I call on the Congress to join me in protecting and defending the dignity of every human life, including those not yet born. I call on the American people to continue to care for women in unexpected pregnancies and to support adoption and foster care in a more meaningful way, so every child can have a loving home. And finally, I ask every citizen of this great Nation to listen to the sound of silence caused by a generation lost to us, and then to raise their voices for all affected by abortion, both seen and unseen.”

With these beautiful words, the tradition of presidential proclamations on behalf of life has reached a new shore of opportunity, one in which we can move toward a golden age of protection for our young.

Here are links to all 22 of these statements of principle: 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.

AUTHOR

Chuck Donovan

Chuck Donovan served in the Reagan White House as a senior writer and as Deputy Director of Presidential Correspondence until early 1989. He was executive vice president of Family Research Council, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, and founder/president of Charlotte Lozier Institute from 2011 to 2024. He has written and spoken extensively on issues in life and family policy.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Louisiana Blazes Trail to Classify Abortion Pill as ‘Controlled Substance’

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The abortion drug regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol is advertised by abortion giants such as Planned Parenthood as “safe” and “effective.” But researchers have unveiled evidence that proves these pills, which work together to end the life of an unborn baby, are not safe.

And yet, the use of chemical abortion is spreading. As reported in March, it took just six months for three of California’s colleges to carry out over 420 abortions with the abortion drug. In an effort to combat this increased usage of these harmful substances, states such as Louisiana have put forth legislation to criminalize obtaining mifepristone and misoprostol without a legitimate prescription.

The Louisiana state Senate and House recognized the dangers these drugs present and have chosen not to take those risks lightly. Last week, SB 276 was passed with overwhelming support in the state Senate (27-9), with a 63-29 vote in the state House. And on Friday, Governor Jeff Landry (R) officially signed the bill into law, making Louisiana the first U.S. state to enact legislation that classifies chemical abortion pills as “controlled substances.”

As The Daily Wire reported, the bill “adds both mifepristone and misoprostol to the state’s list of dangerous controlled substances and creates punishment for coerced abortions,” including potential prison time and fines up to $5,000. The law, sponsored by Senator Thomas Pressly (R-La.), will take effect October 1, 2024. “This is a huge piece of legislation,” lauded Jody Hice, former congressman and guest host Friday’s episode of “Washington Watch.”

Pressly, who celebrated the legislation being signed into law, expressed how the motivation behind the bill was personal. “[M]y sister was the victim of a horrible domestic violence attack,” he told Hice. He explained how she and her husband “were going through some marital issues,” and in the heat of their disagreements, her husband “tried to poison her seven times with [mifepristone]” by crushing it up and putting it in a drink he then gave to his pregnant wife. Catherine, Pressly’s sister, noticed what her husband was attempting to do and “was able to take the abortion reversal pill and able to save the life of my now 22-month-old niece,” the senator shared.

“Thank God,” he added, Catherine and her baby girl are “alive and doing remarkably well, considering the circumstances … during the first trimester of pregnancy.” Ultimately, Pressly emphasized, the danger of chemical abortion “was a personal issue for me.” And it’s his sister’s story he now hopes can aid in protecting “other women from having this horrible attack happen to them.”

Hice expressed how “there’s so much fear mongering from the abortion industry about this legislation.” As he emphasized, “Some tell us [mifepristone is] no more dangerous than Advil or some other similar drug.” But according to Hice, these criticisms clearly “missed the mark,” as “this is a huge problem across the board.”

“Oh, it truly is,” Pressly stated. “My goal in this is … to ensure that we are protecting life.” Additionally, the goal of the Louisiana law, as the senator described, is to allow “health care professionals to do their job and ensure that these pills are being used in a proper way that is not for elective abortion,” which Hice stated was “a great step in the right direction.”

Hice asked, “How can other states follow Louisiana’s lead on this extremely important issue?” According to Pressley, the first step in helping other states follow suit is to educate them on the dangers of chemical abortion. “[W]hen you look at the risk to the public,” Pressly pointed out, “not only to the unborn babies, but also to the mothers who could be poisoned with these pills as my sister was … it’s untenable that we don’t do more to protect women and protect the unborn in these situations.” But what it boils down to, the senator continued, is that “we’ve got to put more protections in place,” which is “exactly what we did in Louisiana. And I hope that other states will continue to follow our lead on that.”

Pressly explained how the Left will portray this law as something negative, as conservatives “not caring for women.” But the senator wanted “to be very clear” that this legislation does have both the well-being of the mother and the child in mind. He concluded, “We’re simply saying that it should be a doctor that’s making a … prescription and allowing it to move forward when it’s not for abortion. But in Louisiana, we do not allow abortion.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Planned Parenthood Committed 392,712 Abortions, Received $699.3 Million in Taxpayer Funding in 2023

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Despite seeing fewer patients and reducing bona fide health care services, Planned Parenthood received a record-breaking amount of taxpayer funding last year, according to Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson in the organization’s most recent annual report, which she describes as a “love note” to abortionists.

Planned Parenthood committed 392,712 abortions and received a record-breaking $699.3 million in taxpayer funding in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, according to its most recent annual report released on Wednesday.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s affiliates perpetrated an average of 1,076 abortions every day of the year, as they amassed $1.8 billion in revenue and $2.5 billion in net assets.

Government funding for the abortion giant increased, although Planned Parenthood saw 80,000 fewer patients (2.05 million) last year than in 2022 (2.13 million), according to PPFA’s annual report, titled “Above & Beyond,” which covers the fiscal year which ran from July 2022 to June 2023.

Despite complaining of about half the country enacting pro-life protections for children since the Dobbs decision, the number of abortions Planned Parenthood carried out surged in the last year. Abortions increased by 18,557 over last year — when Planned Parenthood committed 374,155 abortions and received $670.4 million in taxpayer funding, during its 2021-2022 fiscal year — an increase of 9,252 abortions over pre-Dobbs levels.

“This report is our love note” to abortionists, writes Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson.

Pro-life advocates observed Planned Parenthood has inflicted a ponderous number of deaths on innocent Americans last year. “This is a record number of abortions for the organization and represents approximately 40% of the abortions performed in the United States,” said Michael New, a senior associate scholar at Charlotte Lozier Institute, in a statement emailed to The Washington Stand. “This puts abortions performed by Planned Parenthood in the top four leading causes of death in the United States, after heart disease, cancer and COVID-19,” SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser told TWS.

Taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood surged by $28.9 million over last year and $65.9 million since 2021. Taxpayer revenue accounts for one-third (34%) of Planned Parenthood’s revenue. “Planned Parenthood dropped this bombshell report while many Americans are still recovering from Tax Day,” said Dannenfelser. “Bidenomics has turned into abortionomics.”

“Meanwhile, while your average American’s annual income is down,” wrote Hugh Brown, executive vice president of the American Life League, in a statement emailed to TWS. “We can barely afford necessities — and our government’s answer? Funnel $700 million to the elite baby killers.”

The funding increase comes although a majority (53%) of Americans oppose funding abortion in the United States, and larger majorities oppose foreign abortion funding. Although presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has yet to announce he will protect U.S. taxpayers from funding Planned Parenthood in his second term, he released a Protect Life rule preventing Title X family funding recipients from referring women for abortions in July 2019, his third year in office. Planned Parenthood withdrew from the Title X program rather than curtail or redirect its abortion business.

However, President Joe Biden reversed Trump’s order in October 2021 and subsequently opened multiple funding avenues to the abortion franchise. “The federal government should not be funding the facilitation of abortion in any form or fashion — at home or abroad,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins has noted.

More Money, Fewer Health Care Services

The increased funding comes despite the fact that the number of genuine health care services Planned Parenthood offers has fallen precipitously. “Between 2022 and 2023, preventive-care visits fell by 31.0%, pap tests fell by 13.5%, cancer screenings fell by 1.4%, and adoption referrals fell by 4.5%. Interestingly, for every adoption referral in 2023, Planned Parenthood performed over 228 abortions,” explained New. “In the past 10 years, the number of abortions performed by Planned Parenthood has increased by 20%. Meanwhile, cancer screenings fell by more than 58%, and prenatal services declined by more than 67%.”

The report highlights PPFA’s commitment to selling women on abortion, say critics. “Once again, pregnant women who walk into Planned Parenthood are sold an abortion 97% of the time, rather than helped to keep their child or make an adoption plan. Meanwhile, they saw 80,000 fewer patients, provided 60,000 fewer pap tests and breast exams, and even gave out less contraception,” Dannenfelser told TWS.

PPFA increased its bottom line by working on the logistics of abortions in pro-life states. Some “90 patient navigators across 41 Planned Parenthood affiliates helped more than 33,000 people get the transportation and travel support, financial assistance, and referrals they needed to get abortion,” its report states.

Planned Parenthood compared its abortion-expansion activities to the miracles wrought by faith in Jesus Christ. “For Planned Parenthood [abortion] staff, this was a year of moving mountains: finding appointments in other states and the resources to get patients there, building as much capacity as possible for abortion appointments, fulfilling increased demand in some places for birth control, and much more,” the organization writes. PPFA claimed it provided financial support to 15,000 people for travel for out-of-state abortion and funding for 50,000 mothers to have an abortion. It did not state how it raised these funds.

Transgender Procedures, Abortion Advocacy, and Abortifacients

The latest update reveals that the abortion business’s concerted drive to profit from expanded transgender procedures advanced in 2023. Planned Parenthood refused to specifically disclose how many transgender procedures the abortion franchise carried out in the last fiscal year, lumping its transgender business among 177,237 “Other Procedures.” PPFA reported a mere 15,902 “other procedures” in its 2020-2021 report.

The report revealed that 45 of Planned Parenthood’s 49 affiliates perpetrated transgender procedures in 2022 — up from 41 the previous year and just 30 in the 2020-2021 fiscal year. This year’s report includes first-person testimonials praising PPFA for administering life-altering, sterilizing, and bone-depleting hormone injections. “As a trans woman, the services provided to me saved my life. I am so grateful for the services you provide to ALL women,” wrote the man.

Planned Parenthood and its international affiliate, Planned Parenthood Global, committed tens of millions of dollars to abortion expansion at home and abroad. Planned Parenthood boasts of its 30 open lawsuits against pro-life protections, winning injunctions preventing seven states from defending unborn children from abortion. Its U.S. affiliates spent $46.7 million on “public policy” and $14.8 to “engage communities.”

Planned Parenthood Global dedicated $113 million to abortion “advocacy,” partnering with 80 organizations in nine countries. Its activities included “community-based access to misoprostol,” the second pill in the chemical abortion cocktail, which can be used on its own to induce abortion (with varying degrees of harm to mothers). The abortion business directed 90% of its efforts toward nations that protect unborn children’s lives in the law, such as Mexico, where its efforts led to “the legalization of abortion in Quintana Roo up to 12 weeks — a decision affecting 470,000 women of reproductive age in the state.”

Contraception remained a cornerstone of the PPFA business model in 2023. PPFA distributed contraception 2,250,913 times, including implanting long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) in 1,548,022 people and distributing 552,721 so-called “Emergency Contraception” kits. All hormonal contraception may potentially act as an abortifacient by making it impossible for a newly conceived/fertilized child to implant in the uterine wall.

PPFA shapes the way young people see sex both through partnerships with public schools and online influencers. “Planned Parenthood is proud to be the nation’s largest sex educator,” writes McGill Johnson in the report’s opening summary. Planned Parenthood’s videos were viewed three million times, and PPFA reached 1.2 million people through education or training sessions. “PPFA launched a national campaign across platforms to destigmatize abortion,” the report notes.

PPFA also plans to shape academic views by producing “scientific” studies promoting its view of the abortion controversy. In all, “34 Planned Parenthood affiliates participated in 47 studies” last year, including one focusing on “potential logistical, financial, and other burdens of travel faced by patients who are forced to travel for their” abortion, the report states.

Planned Parenthood’s report also raises concerns over possible censorship. A section of the annual report titled “Shifting Culture” states PPFA is “leading tech companies to discuss how to improve corporate accountability and address health care misinformation.”

The report takes on added importance as abortion has emerged as the dominant theme of the Biden-Harris reelection campaign and Democratic campaigns generally. “Vice President Kamala Harris even made a campaign stop at a Planned Parenthood abortion center,” noted Dannenfelser. Harris called pro-life laws “immoral” during the visit. “In turn, their political arm spends more than any other abortion-related group to lobby the federal government against commonsense policies like protecting babies born alive after failed abortions.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

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The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Huge Victory’: 5th Circuit Rules Against Mailing Abortion Pills and Ignoring Women’s Injuries

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The Biden administration suffered a major setback, as a federal appeals court has ruled the abortion industry cannot send the abortion pill through the mail, nor ignore the life-threatening harms suffered by the women who take it. The unanimous decision, which pro-life advocates say could save tens of thousands of lives, likely places the pro-life movement and the abortion lobby on another collision course for the Supreme Court.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, ruled against laxer safety standards placed on the abortion pill by the Obama and Biden administrations. In the case, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a collection of doctors and OB-GYNs represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom argued the FDA had negligently abused its expedited approval of the chemical abortion drug mifepristone in 2000 for political purposes.

The panel believed the doctors waited too long to file a legal challenge, as the statute of limitations had likely expired. But it overturned abortion expansions made in 2021 by the Biden administration and in 2016 by the Obama-Biden administration. Wednesday’s ruling:

  • reduces the number of weeks mifepristone may be dispensed from 10 weeks to seven;
  • stipulates that only a physician may prescribe the pill, also known as RU-486;
  • ends telemed abortions by requiring an abortion-minded woman to have three in-person visits with a doctor: the first to confirm pregnancy and to take mifepristone, the second to take misoprostol, and a follow-up to check for adverse effects caused by the chemical abortion;
  • bars abortion pills from being sent through the mail; and
  • mandates that abortionists report all adverse events caused by mifepristone, not merely when the pill causes a woman’s death.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins called the ruling a “significant victory for the health and safety of women.” Former Congressman Jody Hice said the judgment constitutes “a huge, huge victory for the pro-life movement as a whole and for protecting the health of women.”

The Biden administration “unlawfully allowed for mail-order abortions,” ADF senior counsel Erin Hawley told Hice on “Washington Watch” Thursday. “The Fifth Circuit’s decision puts an end to that.” The decision “makes good on the promise of Dobbs” by stopping abortion activists in Democrat-controlled states from shipping mifepristone into pro-life states, eviscerating state pro-life protections for the unborn.

The ruling reversed abortion-expanding executive actions taken by two Democratic administrations. Barack Obama and Joe Biden both moved to change the rules governing the distribution of mifepristone, known as Risk Evaluation and Mitigation System (REMS). In 2016, the Obama-Biden administration said abortionists no longer had to report serious side effects of the abortion pill to the FDA’s Adverse Events Reporting System (FAERS), only deaths. In December 2021, Biden’s FDA allowed the abortion pills to be prescribed online, without a medical check-up to verify the woman does not have an ectopic pregnancy, or that she is pregnant at all. The impact weighed heavily on the panel.

“In loosening mifepristone’s safety restrictions, FDA failed to address several important concerns about whether the drug would be safe for the women who use it,” wrote Judge Jennifer Elrod in the majority opinion. “It failed to consider the cumulative effect of removing several important safeguards at the same time.”

One of the plaintiffs in the case, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologist (AAPLOG), told The Washington Stand the ruling is “a first step towards reprioritizing women’s health over the interests of the abortion industry and its allies within our profession.” FRC senior fellow Meg Kilgannon stressed that, although the abortion pill is “never safe for the baby” — “the baby is going to die” in any abortion — these terms constitute a “huge improvement over” existing practices. Giving abortion pills directly to the mother is “medically much safer for women” than shipping them via the mail, because it “ensures that no third party can have access to them and then further exploit women: a trafficker, a human trafficker, someone who would give these drugs to a woman unbeknownst to her.”

Pro-life advocates “should be cautiously optimistic” as the case moves forward, Rev. Jim Harden of CompassCare told TWS. “Pending the Supreme Court’s review, the drug remains available to women without medical oversight. Furthermore, the abortion industry continues to illegally ship the drug to women’s homes in violation of 18 U.S. Code § 1461 and 1462,” conventionally known as the Comstock Act. Two days after Christmas 2022, Biden’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued an opinion that pharmacies may mail or ship abortion pills to pro-life states.

These measures will not take effect immediately, if at all. The Supreme Court issued a stay requiring the case to be fully adjudicated, possibly all the way to the High Court, before the appeals court ruling can take effect. Justices have not yet indicated if they plan to hear the case without a conflicting ruling from another court.

The panoply of possible harms has multiplied as U.S. chemical abortions in the U.S. doubled between 2011 and 2020. Mifepristone now accounts for 54% of all U.S. abortions, according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute. The current regimen of unsupervised “mail-order abortion pills put thousands of women and girls at risk of serious complications from abortion pills every year,” said Katie Daniel, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s state policy director.

Studies have documented that the two-drug abortion cocktail causes four times the level of harmful side effects for women than surgical abortions. The FDA documented 4,207 adverse events from mifepristone use — including 26 deaths, 1,045 hospitalizations, 603 events requiring a blood transfusion, and 413 infections between 2000 and 2021. One study found that as many as 35 of every 100 women who ingest both pills will end up in the emergency room. In a pending lawsuit in New York City, a 16-year-old girl swore that mifepristone left her permanently “sick, sore, lame and disabled” — and caused her child, who survived, to be born with “profound birth defects.”

“I’ve personally treated many women for complications from the abortion pill (mifepristone and misoprostol), including performing emergency surgery on a woman who bled for two months after receiving these drugs,” noted Dr. Ingrid Skop, an OB-GYN who serves as vice president of the Charlotte Lozier Institute. “Those promoting unsupervised DIY abortion pills clearly prioritize the deaths of unborn children over the health and safety of women.”

A majority (55%) of women who consider themselves “pro-choice” regret their decision to take mifepristone, according to a national survey from Support After Abortion. One-third of women subjected to a chemical abortion “reported an adverse change” in their lives, such as “depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and thoughts of suicide,” the group found.

Mail-order abortion “lacks any sort of meaningful medical oversight and places women in danger of serious, life-threatening complications, and ends the lives of unborn children,” Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, told TWS. “The FDA has a solemn duty to prioritize health and safety over politics and should be held accountable for failing to do so.”

The Fifth Circuit partially affirmed and partially vacated a stronger decision from U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, who ruled on April 7 that FDA wrongly approved mifepristone in 2000. They allowed the drug to be dispensed according to 2016 standards and allowed a 2019 motion for the name-brand Mifeprex to be dispensed as a generic drug.

Pro-life advocates hope if and when the case comes before the Supreme Court, justices will reconsider mifepristone’s controversial approval in 2000, which they contend took place under political pressure from the Clinton administration. In doing so, they state, the FDA violated the Administration Procedure Act.

“The FDA, just like any other agency, has to follow the rules. They didn’t do that for chemical abortion. They bowed to political pressure,” Hawley told Hice. The courts should view the litigation “not as an abortion case, but as a case in which an agency simply failed to follow the rules.” One of the panel’s judges — Judge James Ho, a Trump appointee — dissented that the FDA’s approval of mifepristone should be reversed, pulling mifepristone off all pharmaceutical shelves.

“The FDA exists to protect Americans from dangerous drugs, yet numerous pro-abortion presidents used the agency as a political tool to promote elective abortion at the expense of pregnant women and their preborn children,” Texas Right to Life president John Seago told The Washington Stand. “We hope the court will take accusations against the FDA seriously and will fairly examine the agency’s negligent and politically-motivated approval of this deadly abortion drug over the last 23 years.”

Multiple levels of the Biden administration immediately registered their outrage at Wednesday’s ruling. A spokesperson for Biden’s Justice Department said the administration “strongly disagrees with the Fifth Circuit’s decision” and “will be seeking Supreme Court review.” Vice President Kamala Harris deemed the decision “a threat to a woman’s freedom.” Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra stated that banning the abortion pill would have “a devastating impact on women’s health” by denying them “the medications they need.”

The Biden administration has lost no chance to push back against the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned abortion to the democratic process for the first time in 49 years. Last July, the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent a guidance to 60,000 pharmacies threatening to take legal “corrective action” against anyone who refuses to dispense the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone to “pregnant people” and explain “how to take” it. Others continually urge the administration to go further. Before the ruling even came down, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) advised the Biden administration to “ignore the ruling” and “keep this life-saving drug on the market,” likening lawlessness to Abraham Lincoln’s actions freeing the slaves.

Deep-blue states including California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, and Washington state have begun stockpiling mifepristone (and in some cases, misoprostol). So-called “abortion sanctuaries” have promised not to prosecute abortionists who mail mifepristone across state lines, in violation of state or federal law. “Because of this, women are more at risk for chemical abortion injury now than ever before,” said CompassCare’s Jim Harden.

If justices agree to take up the decision, yet another Supreme Court ruling on abortion could impact the 2024 elections. Perkins noted that the three-judge panel — Judges James Ho, Cory Wilson, and Jennifer Walker Elrod — were all appointed by pro-life presidents, highlighting how Christians’ votes lead to concrete decisions that save lives. “With two of the justices on the Fifth Circuit appointed by President Trump” — and Elrod named to the court by George W. Bush — “this ruling also underscores the importance of presidential elections,” Perkins said.

Constitutional lawyers vow they will not relent until the abortion pill, which kills children and hurts women, is removed from all venues. “We won’t rest until the FDA and the profit-driven abortion industry are held accountable for the suffering they’ve inflicted on women and girls, as well as the deaths of countless unborn children,” said Daniels.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: RFK Jr.’s Abortion Flip-Flop Reveals Democrats’ Abortion Radicalism

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

The 5 Worst Lies of the Biden Administration

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For the Biden administration, pushing abortion and transgender ideology is a top priority at all levels of government. Sometimes, this priority even overshadows their commitment to the truth. And the Biden administration has told some real whoppers. But don’t take my word for it; consider the facts for yourself. Here are the top five lies of the Biden administration regarding abortion and transgender ideology.

1) Weakened safety standards for the abortion pill regimen does not pose a threat to women.

On January 3, 2023, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permanently removed a “requirement that mifepristone be dispensed only in certain health care settings, specifically clinics, medical offices, and hospitals (referred to as the ‘in-person dispensing requirement’).” At the same time, it created a new program under which pharmacies such as Walgreens and CVS can become licensed to distribute mifepristone.

Mifepristone is the first of two drugs taken to induce a chemical abortion. FDA in 2011 placed mifepristone under the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation System (REMS) due to reports of adverse events up to and including death. REMS is reserved “for certain medications with serious safety concerns.” By removing the in-person dispensing requirement from the REMS governing the use of mifepristone, FDA enabled abortion pill dispensaries to ship the pills to women without any oversight from a health care practitioner.

On December 16, 2021, the FDA had “determined that the data support modification of the REMS to reduce burden on patient access and the health care delivery system and to ensure the benefits of the product outweigh the risks.”

On January 22, 2023, President Biden issued a memorandum endorsing FDA’s action, saying that it was “evidence-based” and taken “after an independent and comprehensive review of the risks and benefits.” He directed the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to work together to further advance distribution of the abortion pill regimen. In compliance with this directive, Attorney General Merrick Garland and HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra both denounced an April court decision blocking the distribution of mifepristone (the decision is currently on hold).

In reality, the best available evidence shows that “chemical abortion has led to a surge in emergency room visits and higher rates of complications,” according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI). According to a peer-reviewed, 17-year longitudinal study of Medicaid claims data, in the 30 days following a chemical abortion, women have a 22% greater risk of visiting the emergency room for any reason, and a 53% greater risk of visiting the emergency room for an abortion-related reason, when compared with a surgical abortion.

Peer-reviewed studies of comprehensive datasets in Finland, Sweden, and California also show higher complication rates from chemical abortion. In Finland, a study of 42,619 abortions found that one fifth of all chemical abortions resulted in complications, a rate four times greater than for surgical abortions. In California, a study found the major complication rate for chemical abortions was four times greater than for surgical abortions. In Sweden, a study found complications of chemical abortions “increased significantly during 2008-2015 without any evident cause.”

Although President Biden called the FDA review “comprehensive” and “evidence-based,” the data they reviewed was far less robust than these peer-reviewed studies. “Starting in 2016, the FDA chose to only require reports of death associated with the abortion pill, making their dataset woefully incomplete,” said Dr. James Studnicki, CLI’s vice president of Data Analytics. The FDA review ignored this substantial evidence of high complication rates when it freed the distribution of chemical abortion pills from professional oversight.

2) Military readiness requires taxpayers to cover abortion-related expenses for servicemembers.

On October 20, 2022, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a memorandum titled, “Ensuring Access to Reproductive Health Care,” which directed the Department of Defense (DOD) “to ensure that our Service members and their families can access reproductive health care.” On February 16, 2023, the DOD finalized the policy, granting up to 21 days of “administrative absence to non-covered reproductive health care,” subsidizing “travel for non-covered reproductive health care services,” and loosening “command notification of pregnancy” to benefit abortion.

DOD has claimed the policy will “increase readiness.” After Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) announced he would block senior-level military promotions until DOD ended the policy, President Biden accused Tuberville of “jeopardizing our national security over domestic social issues. Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby was asked last month, “Why is the new DOD policy on abortion critical to military readiness?” He responded that paying for abortion-related travel was a “foundational, sacred obligation of military leaders.”

In reality, federal law prohibits the DOD from using taxpayer funds to promote abortion. Under 10 U.S. Code § 1093, DOD funds and facilities “may not be used to perform abortions except where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or in a case in which the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.” On December 15, 2022, 66 members of Congress wrote to Secretary Austin notifying him that “funding travel and transportation to obtain non-covered, elective abortions through the DOD would, in and of itself violate federal law. It also contradicts DOD’s past recognition, interpretation, and implementation of this law.”

3) Self-perceived gender identity always overrides biological distinctions between the sexes.

On January 20, 2021, President Biden issued an executive order directing federal agencies to interpret all “laws that prohibit sex discrimination” to “prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation,” extending the Supreme Court’s Title VII-specific reasoning in Bostock v. Clayton County to every federal law. A separate executive order on this date ordered the president’s Domestic Policy Council to “coordinate efforts to embed equity principles [including with ‘respect to … gender identity’], policies, and approaches across the Federal Government.”

In the months that followed, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the U.S. Department of Education, the DOJ, HHS, and other agencies have faithfully implemented this directive to expand the presence of biological males in women’s shelters, women’s locker rooms, and women’s sports, reinterpreting the Fair Housing Act, Title IX, and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. FRC Action has compiled a full accounting of the dozens of actions taken by Biden administration in pursuit of this goal.

In reality, physical differences between men and women are too important to ignore. Biological males are, on average, taller, heavier, and stronger than females, which gives them an upper hand in many types of sports — not to mention a predatory advantage when they win admission into women’s-only spaces. Males have won over 30 championships in women’s-only sporting events dating back to 2003. These distinctions are so obvious that even pro-LGBT Democrats cannot entirely ignore them. Last month, a Democratic congressman suggested erecting “barriers” in women’s locker rooms to protect women who felt uncomfortable changing next to a biological male with fully intact anatomy. And a Democratic senator tweeted, “We cannot avoid the biological/evolutionary differences between men and women.”

4) Civically engaged American citizens are violent domestic terrorists.

On October 4, 2021, Garland directed the FBI to investigate a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.” That directive came five days after the National School Boards Association asked President Biden to investigate parents who spoke out at school board meetings for “domestic terrorism and hate crimes,” in a letter prompted by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. Earlier this year, the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government determined that the FBI had, in fact, used counterterrorism resources to investigate parents. Needless to say, the “spike” in violence was entirely fabricated.

On September 23, 2022, 25 heavily armed federal agents conducted a pre-dawn raid on the home of pro-life activist Mark Houck to arrest him in front of his wife and seven children. The DOJ indicted Houck under the FACE Act, alleging that two years ago he violently pushed an abortion facility escort to the ground, when he was only defending his 12-year-old son from an aggressive, profanity-laced tirade. Houck had offered to voluntarily surrender months earlier, but apparently the DOJ’s resources were better spent on a SWAT-style raid. This January, a jury acquitted Houck of the charges brought against him.

In February 2023, a leaked memo from the FBI field office in Richmond, Va. revealed the bureau was spying on “radical traditionalist” Catholic communities. After months of FBI stonewalling, the Weaponization Subcommittee finally obtained documents proving that the Richmond field office coordinated with at least two other field offices, and that the investigation had gone as far as seeking to embed undercover sources.

In reality, each of these episodes simply involved ordinary citizens peacefully living their lives, practicing their faith, and properly engaging in the democratic process. In contrast with the previous lies, once caught, the Biden administration could muster no defense against the obvious impropriety of their behavior except pretending it never happened, Nevertheless, the fact remains that the Biden administration has weaponized federal law enforcement resources to investigate private citizens for nothing more than being civically engaged.

5) Protecting minors from harmful, irreversible gender reassignment procedures is illegal discrimination and potentially fatal.

On July 25, 2022, HHS announced a proposed rule under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which would force health insurers to cover gender reassignment procedures for minors and could financially coerce doctors to perform them.

Far from an isolated affair, promoting gender reassignment procedures is official Biden administration policy — although the federal role is less direct than states. The DOJ has intervened in lawsuits to block laws protecting minors from gender reassignment procedures in Alabama and Tennessee. The DOJ also tried to force two Catholic hospital associations to provide and insure gender reassignment procedures, in violation of their religious beliefs.

State actions to protect minors from gender reassignment procedures “callously threaten to harm children and their families just to score political points,” alleged President Biden in a March 2022 statement. He appealed to the political conclusions of “respected medical organizations” to argue that “access to gender-affirming care for transgender children can benefit mental health, lower suicide rates, and improve other health outcomes.”

HHS Secretary Becerra agreed in a June 2022 press release, “This year, we have unfortunately seen an alarming rise in state laws and other actions that discriminate against our LGBTQI+ children and youth. … We as a Department recommit to ensuring every American can access health care — including gender-affirming care.” This remained the official White House position as of April 2023, when Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said gender reassignment procedures for minors is “something for a child and their parents to decide” and certainly “not something we believe should be decided by legislators.”

In reality, confused children are often “given no choice” about pursuing gender reassignment procedures, according to detransitioner Prisha Mosley. “They said it was transition or suicide. … I was told, ‘You will kill yourself if you don’t go through with these treatments.’” A whistleblower account from one transgender center said the providers even disregarded the refusal of the custodial parent and proceeded with gender reassignment procedures anyways.

The physical reality of gender transitioning is even more brutal. One young detransitioner said the reassignment procedures performed on him did not make him a woman, but they did make him a “patient for life.” Young people who begin puberty blockers almost universally proceed to cross-sex hormones and often mutilating surgery. Cross-sex hormones can cause “irreversible infertility, while surgeries cause irreversible loss of healthy, functioning organs. Yet Biden said those opposing these gruesome procedures are the ones harming children.

On each of these five points, the Biden administration is driven more by ideology than by the truth. Abortion-by-mail is not safe for women. Taxpayer-funded abortion travel is not necessary for military readiness. Biological sex does matter more than gender identity in many contexts. Citizens aren’t domestic extremists just because they advocate policies the Biden administration doesn’t like. And gender reassignment procedures are good for nobody, especially not minors. With the constant drumbeat of fiction to the contrary, we must keep telling the truth — and saying it loud.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Biden ‘Abandons Pregnant Mothers to Suffer Alone’ from Abortion Pills: 75 Members of Congress

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A flurry of legislation, executive orders, and lawsuits have volleyed back and forth between the Biden administration, which seeks to protect the abortion industry, and pro-life advocates attempting to protect unborn children and their mothers. As the Biden administration expanded the distribution of abortion-inducing drugs, 75 pro-life lawmakers have demanded the FDA take pills off the market altogether. As Biden’s executive actions tout expanding the distribution of abortion-inducing drugs as “essential to our [n]ation’s health,” litigators have threatened to take abortionists to state court and issued fresh warnings to corporations thinking of trafficking in life-ending drugs.

“We call on the FDA to remove mifepristone from the market, or, at minimum, promptly restore and further strengthen the initial basic health and safety requirements for abortion drugs, and cease permitting the mailing and shipping of abortion drugs in violation of [f]ederal criminal law,” wrote 75 members of Congress to the Biden administration’s Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, Robert Califf. The Biden administration’s new standard “abandons pregnant mothers to suffer alone, without proper medical evaluation or oversight, potentially life-threatening complications, which can include severe bleeding, infection, potential surgical intervention, and even death.”

It also “makes it easier for these drugs to fall into the hands of human traffickers or abusers, who may administer the drugs to pregnant mothers without their knowledge or consent,” wrote the coalition — 23 Senators and 52 U.S. representatives, led by Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) and Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) — last Thursday. Ironically, by insisting abortion companies can mail abortion pills, “the FDA is, astonishingly, conditioning certification for pharmacies on their willingness to violate [f]ederal criminal law.”

This letter comes after 41 members of Congress chided Attorney General Merrick Garland that the Justice Department has “abdicated its Constitutional responsibility to enforce the law,” specifically the Comstock Act, which forbids mailing abortion-inducing drugs.

Shorn of their majority in the House of Representatives, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have increasingly advanced abortion-on-demand through a combination of executive action and bureaucratic inaction. “Members of our cabinet and our administration are now directed, as of the president’s order, to identify barriers to access” to pills that induce the death of unborn children “and to recommend actions” to facilitate their distribution nationwide, Harris told a crowd of abortionists and lobbyists in Tallahassee last Sunday, on what would have been the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Biden’s memo directed AG Garland, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Xavier Becerra, and Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) Alejandro Mayorkas to pursue “further efforts to protect access to” abortion. Biden also directed the Attorney General and the DHS secretary of Homeland Security “to consider actions … that would protect the safety and security of patients, providers, and third parties, and that would protect the security of pharmacies and other entities providing, dispensing, or delivering” abortion pills. “Defending and protecting [abortion] is essential to our [n]ation’s health, safety, and progress,” Biden wrote, before describing pro-life laws as “threats to the liberty” of Americans.

Congressional Republicans more closely reflect the public sentiment on abortion pills. Nearly all young voters — 91% of Gen Z and Gen Y registered voters — support requiring an abortionist to administer an ultrasound to protect mothers from ectopic pregnancies; 93% say abortionists should test women’s blood (RH) to protect women from future infertility; and 60% say the pills should be given in person to avoid them from falling into the hands of an abuser, according to a poll released this month by Students for Life of America. A previous KofC/Marist poll found that 63% of Americans oppose sending abortion-inducing pills through the mail.

“The Biden administration is trying to establish the FDA as the new Supreme Court with their regulations as the new Roe v. Wade. This abuse of power is not only an attack on states’ rights but is also an attack on common decency,” said Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins. “Rest assured that 50 years after Roe v. Wade, pro-life Americans will not have the flawed and inhuman judgment of seven men replaced by the highly discredited Joe Biden.”

Biden notwithstanding, the FDA is an inauspicious vehicle to impose sweeping federal regulations. Nearly all (98%) of the rules issued by the FDA between 2001 and 2017 were unconstitutional, according to a report from the Pacific Legal Foundation.

Rather than rely on the White House to curb its own abuses, pro-life legislators and litigators at the state and federal levels have proposed laws and lawsuits to protect life from executive overreach.

On January 20, Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) introduced the Teleabortion Prevention Act of 2023, which would require abortionists to perform an in-person examination of the mother before prescribing abortion-inducing drugs, be present when she ingests them, and schedule a follow-up visit to treat any complications.

“The abortion industry continues to exploit vulnerable women through the use of chemical abortions for profit, and they are dishonest about the impact of chemical abortion on women’s health. For years they have worked to remove key health and safety protocols that require an abortionist to physically examine the mother before administering these dangerous drugs,” said Connor Semelsberger, director of Federal Affairs at Family Research Council. “Thank you to Representative Good for standing up to protect both vulnerable women and their unborn children.”

Similarly, Reps. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) and Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.) introduced a bill to rescind the FDA’s loosening of women’s health protections on the distribution of abortion-inducing pills and prevent the agency from reverting to the lower standards in the future. This legislation “to nullify the final FDA rule that expands distribution of these drugs through telehealth and mail is urgently needed to save the lives of babies and their mothers,” said Kris Ullman, president of Eagle Forum.

Semelsberger agreed, “Despite what the Biden administration may claim, there is mounting evidence of just how dangerous do-it-yourself chemical abortions are to both unborn children and their mothers. The latest action by the FDA to put pharmacies on the front lines of distributing abortion pills — without any real concern for how this move will impact maternal health — shows just how politicized the FDA has become.”

“Thanks to pro-life leaders like Representatives Hern and Harshbarger, there is hope that this Congress will take back its role in providing oversight to the FDA and restore true health and safety measures for all Americans, including the unborn,” he concluded.

The Protect the UNBORN (Undo the Negligent Biden Orders Right Now) Act, introduced by Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), would prevent the federal government from enforcing Biden’s abortion-expanding Executive Orders 14079 and 14076.

Aside from the federal government, 29 states place commonsense regulations on chemical abortion, which has a higher rate of dangerous interactions than surgical abortion; 18 require the abortionist to be present when the woman takes the pills. And the top lawyers in nearly half the country have promised additional action to protect the unborn from the Biden administration’s abortion pill regimen.

“The authority to regulate abortion lies with the people and their elected representatives. In our states, we prioritize the health and safety of women and children and our laws reflect this,” wrote the attorneys general of 22 states to FDA Commissioner Califf on January 13. “Our [s]tates will not yield to the [a]dministration’s radical pro-abortion policies.”

Wyoming State Senator Tim Salazar (R-Riverton) introduced SF 109, which would protect unborn children in the state from abortion pills. While the bill would not punish the mother, anyone who manufactures or dispenses abortion pills would face a $9,000 fine and up to six months in prison. If passed, the law would take effect July 1.

Finally, some have appealed to the private sector to follow its conscience — or its financial self-interest — by refusing to stock abortion-inducing drugs. FRC joined more than a dozen other national groups in signing letters asking Rite Aid and Walmart not to distribute abortion-inducing pills in their pharmacies. “We are grateful that, so far, Walmart Inc. has not followed the path of CVS and Walgreens in becoming, in effect, an abortion facility,” said Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council. “Pharmacies across the country should recognize that distributing these drugs is antithetical to their mission of providing medications that allow life to flourish.”

As of this writing, 53,218 people have signed FRC’s petition asking Walgreens and CVS, “Do Not Turn Your Pharmacies into Abortion Businesses!”

AUTHOR
Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Kamala Harris: ‘We Love’ Abortionists

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Former President Bill Clinton tried to soften the Democratic Party’s image as extreme liberals by insisting, “I am not pro-abortion.” Over the weekend, Kamala Harris opened a widely panned speech on abortion by saying she and President Joe Biden “love” abortionists, before concluding her speech, “God bless America.”

The vice president went on to imply that Americans’ unalienable rights do not come from our Creator; omit the right to life from the Declaration of Independence; hint that the national anthem supports abortion; accuse pro-life advocates of attacking the “foundations of freedom; and claim an LGBT riot, in which drag queens tried to burn policemen alive, represents “the strength of our nation.”

Harris delivered an address in Tallahassee, Florida, on Sunday to mark what would have been the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, an anniversary aborted last summer when the Supreme Court overturned the case, which first invented a constitutional right to abortion. Planned Parenthood had already planned to hold a “Rally in Tally” before Harris joined their lineup; Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson spoke earlier in the event. An abortionist with Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, named Sujatha Prabhakaran, introduced Harris after leading the crowd in a rousing chant of “Abortion is health care!” (In reality, the Hippocratic Oath states, “I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my art.”)

“We love” abortionists. Arriving at the podium, a confused Harris began by asking where Prabhakaran had gone. “We love all of our frontline folks,” said Harris, referring to abortion industry employees. “And this room is filled with them.”

Harris then delivered a speech that rang alarm bells nationwide for its secularism and historical revisionism.

Erasing the Creator and the right to life. Harris seemed to state that Americans’ unalienable rights do not come from God but from a social contract among voters. “America is a promise; it is a promise of freedom and liberty, not for some, but for all — a promise we made in the Declaration of Independence,” she said. Harris then left out our founding document’s reference to the right to life, saying, “We are each endowed with the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Be clear: These rights were not bestowed upon us. They belong to us as Americans.”

The Founding Fathers designed a form of government that would restrain the government from violating Americans’ God-given rights, including the right to life. Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” (Emphases added.)

Both Joe Biden and Barack Obama regularly omitted the Declaration’s reference to “the Creator” — a rhetorical gambit that critics say undermines freedom and liberty.

“We need to know our history and challenge those who want to selectively edit or change our founding documents, because it matters that our rights come to us from God — that they are not a grant from government,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on “Washington Watch” Monday. “When you take God out of the equation … it enables these power-hungry bureaucrats and politicians to try to usurp those rights.”

Secularism also attacks the foundations of our freedoms, said a lifelong student of the Founders’ views. “In every nation in the history of the world, there’s only really been two options: They either have a really big government or a really big God. They don’t have both, because if you have a really big God, you don’t need a really big government,” Tim Barton of WallBuilders told Perkins Monday. “You don’t need it to be God in your life.”

“But if there is no God, then you need a big government,” Barton continued, “because instead of, ‘My God shall supply all my needs,’ it tends to be, ‘My government shall supply all the needs.‘”

Star-Spangled abortion? Harris continued reimagining the nation’s founding when she implied that abortion rings through every line of our national anthem. “Here is a collection of words that mean everything to us as Americans: the heartfelt words of our great national anthem, that America is ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave,’” she said. “But let us ask, can we truly be free if a woman cannot make decisions about her own body?” Abortionists destroy a child’s body by suction/aspiration or dismemberment; they have also injured or killed the mother.

Protecting 6.9% of babies from abortion is extreme? Harris chided “so-called leaders at the statehouse here in Tallahassee” for passing “a radical abortion ban.” Thanks to the bill, she said, “health care providers face prison for up to five years for simply doing their job.”

Governor Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill last year protecting unborn babies from abortion after 15 weeks, or slightly after the first trimester. Abortionists commit “nearly all” U.S. abortions (93.1%) before 13 weeks gestation, according to the Biden-Harris administration’s most recent abortion surveillance. A full 72% of Americans support such a law, according to a Harvard/Harris poll.

The “health care providers” Harris mentioned were abortionists, whose job entails ending the life of a child, which begins at fertilization.

“How dare” Republicans protect life? Pro-life politicians “attack the very foundations of freedom,” Harris continued. “Republicans in Congress are now calling for a nationwide abortion ban. Some even from the moment of conception” — which, embryologists agree, marks the moment a child’s life begins.

“How dare they?! How dare they?!” Harris bellowed.

Allowing abortion-on-demand does not contradict any faith? Harris once again tried to appeal to Americans to lay aside faith-based objections to abortion. “One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that the government should not be telling people what to do with their own bodies,” she claimed. Christians have held that abortion violates their faith, and should be illegal, for 2,000 years. Orthodox Jews also say they hold a pro-life faith. However, the Satanic Temple regards abortion as a sacrament.

The “strength of our nation” was secured by LGBT rioters who attacked police. Harris told the crowd of abortion industry employees and lobbyists that they must have “the kind of determination” that motivated “our greatest patriots,” including “those Americans who fought a Civil War to end the sin of slavery, who organized at Seneca Falls to secure a woman’s right to vote, who launched the Freedom Rides to advance civil rights, and spoke out at the Stonewall Inn to defend human rights.”

On June 29, 1969, six New York City police officers raided the Stonewall Inn, a seedy bar operated by the Mafia without a license, on a morals charge. Thousands of LGBT rioters surrounded the half-dozen cops, pelted them with bottles, and attempted to burn the bar to the ground with them inside. “Our goal was to hurt those police,” said rioter John O’Brien. “I wanted to kill those cops.”

In 2016, Barack Obama named the Stonewall Inn a national monument.

Harris attempted to encourage the crowd, dispirited by pro-life gains since the Dobbs ruling. “We’re on the right side of history,” she told the crowd.

“May God bless you, and may God bless America,” she concluded.

Inverting historical, moral, and religious truth so completely is not accidental but an attempt to demonize the Founding Fathers, repeal the Constitution, and establish an alternate form of government, Barton said.

“I think it’s very hard to argue that Kamala Harris or President Biden don’t understand the positions they’re taking, and they’re doing it intentionally to promote a political ideology philosophy,” Barton told Perkins. “They are working, as President Obama once said, to fundamentally transform America.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

No Safe Space: Chemical Abortion and Trafficked Daughters

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“My strategy was to be unseen. I became numb. Most abuse victims don’t know they are victims. We just know that this is life.” — Darlene, survivor

Darlene was 13 when she was first molested. To this day, she remembers running and hiding under the bed, desperate to disappear. “It just sort of flipped a switch in me, because I had no safe place anymore.” Fatherless, she watched her mom go from one abusive relationship to the next, until one day Darlene just stopped going to school. “That was when my world seemed to completely spiral out of control,” she admits. “[A] guy came to my neighborhood who was so jovial and so friendly to everybody. He was so magnetic is the only thing I can think of. All the kids in the neighborhood gravitated to him — and I had no idea that I was his target.”

By her 14th birthday, she was a commodity. “The first time he sold me was to a businessman,” Darlene thinks back. “He was a bouncer at an illegal gambling ring, and he’d bring me to that back alley — and he’d leave me in the car and men would use me there, over and over and over. And then when he opened the door, he said, ‘Gee, you look like hell.’ … I was beaten, gang-raped, drugged, dragged, and bruised in a sick game of dehumanization.” No one, not even her mother, stopped it. “Sometimes I was out on the streets for days at a time, sometimes weeks.” Her buyers were businessmen, city councilors, professionals, criminals.

After she’d been passed around for five years, she was sold to a man who told her, “in graphic detail how he’d forced other girls to have an abortion.” By that point, Darlene had been trafficked so long, she thought she couldn’t get pregnant. “I didn’t think it would happen,” she said. Until she did. When her abuser found out, he threatened to kill her if she tried to escape without having an abortion. “He even threatened to do it himself.” Terrified, she threw herself at his feet, begging him not to force her. He threw the phone in her lap and waited until she called and made an appointment. “In my mind, I had no choice,” she remembers.

Years have passed, but there are thousands of other Darlenes trapped in horror stories like hers. This very second, there are men online, in malls, walking through neighborhoods, luring girls away from unhappy homes with one goal: to sell them and use them for sex. Like Darlene, they’ve been kicked, beaten, starved, punished, and forced to subject themselves to a level of brutality and humiliation most of us can’t comprehend. Most of these young girls end up pregnant — as many as 71% according to one report. And not just once. Multiple times. “A third of women trafficked ‘underwent numerous abortions as victims of trafficking’” — most against their will.

Now, with Roe v. Wade gone, and abortion activists frantic to protect their biggest business, the plot has become more sinister: abortion pills, through the mail, where no one has to know. The new back-alley method that gives predators like Darlene’s an even easier way to inflict harm.

Before the abortion industry invented chemical killing, there was at least a good possibility that abused and hurting girls would see an adult face to face, a nurse or health care worker in a safe place where they could tell the truth and get help. And while abortion centers like Planned Parenthood’s were notorious about covering up these nightmarish crimes, there was a better chance of teenagers breaking their silence and getting rescued — than removing all supervision and forcing them to go through this dangerous abortion process alone.

As so many doctors have warned, these are lethal drugs. The Left tells women that it’s a simple, safe, natural, and private process. What they don’t tell them is stories like Solome’s. “I had blood all over my legs and went in the tub to wash them. The cramps got so bad I couldn’t even move. I couldn’t even cry…” she testified to the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus. “I couldn’t get to my phone to dial 911 and go to the emergency room…” There was so much pain and blood, she thought she might die. “I haven’t really healed from my experience, and I don’t know if I ever will.”

Imagine the harm rapists and other predators could do if these drugs were as available as the Biden administration is demanding. Children, innocent women, and sex victims of all kinds would be in an endless cycle of violence — with no guarantee that they would survive the complications. Because the last place a serial abuser is going to rush his victims is an emergency room where the girls would have easy access to law enforcement.

And yet, President Biden, controlled by the radicals in his party, has decided to take the side of those monsters, demanding that states make it easier for everyone to get their hands on these deadly drugs. In a term that has redefined extremism, he has decided to become the president of predation. “As our nation faces another significant health care crisis, this guidance is to remind the roughly 60,000 retail pharmacies in the United States of the unique role pharmacies play in ensuring access to comprehensive reproductive health care services,” according to Health and Human Services.

This, Dr. Ingrid Skop warns, despite the fact that chemical abortions have four times as many complications as surgical abortions. The Biden administration, she explained on “Washington Watch,” took away all in-person supervision.

“They can get it delivered by mail without ever encountering a doctor. … [And] these medications work by cutting off hormonal support and then causing contractions. The further along a woman is, the more likely it is to fail. When it fails there, the woman is at risk for infection. She’s at risk for hemorrhage. And that tissue that does not pass out has to be removed surgically. Even under the prior recommendations, using it up to 10 weeks gestation, about 5-8% of the time it does fail and the woman needs surgery. But in this new world where nobody’s even checking to find out how far along she is, it’s going to fail more frequently.”

For any woman, those are inhumane odds. For a woman trapped in a life of sex abuse, it’s a death sentence. The idea that anyone — let alone the leader of the free world — would try to push this poison on innocent mothers and children is abhorrent. What he’s telling the desperate, hurting girls like Darlene is that there’s no way out. That there is no safe place. “Women who are in this situation,” she tells people now, “need healing. They need guidance, they need compassion. But they don’t need abortion.”

She should know. The night Darlene begged her captor for her baby’s life, she had a dream — of a little face, part of a hand “with those distinct stubby fingers,” part of a ribcage. Looking back, she knows it was supernatural, a window into a womb she didn’t know. She woke up, raised her arms in the air in an act of desperation, and said, “God, if you’re real, I need you to show up.” He did, hatching a plan for her to escape with the help of a social worker assigned to track her as a runaway. She faked her abortion and found her freedom.

Darlene was saved by heroes — people who valued her life and her baby’s. Girls everywhere deserve a government and a president who does the same.

AUTHOR

Tony Perkins

EDITORS NOTE: This FRC column appeared in The Washington Stand is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.