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On Valentines Day 2011 pro life advocates united across the country to pray for victims of sex trafficking. The vigil was organized as a response to the recent release of videos connecting two very dark industries: abortion and sex trafficking.

From Washington DC to Orange County, CA, people took time from work to ask God to bring hope and healing and light into the lives of the victims of this most heinous crime.

Abortion and sex-trafficking are sinister and they rob people of their inherent dignity. But God is about truth, life, light, beauty, freedom and recognizing the dignity of the human person. He is all powerful and He hears our prayers, especially where groups are united. Lets join together to continue to pray that God will bring light and healing into even these darkest of situations.

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Joan Hinton was not a household name, but her work on the Manhattan project was historic. After earning her Ph.D. in physics in only two years, she was hand-picked to become a researcher on one of America’s most stunning technological achievements – the development and production of an atomic bomb.

Then she had an attack of conscience. In her obituary in today’s New York Times, she is quoted as telling National Public Radio, “I did not want to spend my life figuring out how to kill people … I wanted to figure out how to let people have a better life, not a worse life.”

So, she became a philanthropist who devoted her life to finding the cure to diseases. Well, not quite: Dr. Hinton moved to China and became a devoted Maoist Communist. I’m not making this up.

According to the Times, “For the past 40 years, she worked on a dairy farm and an agricultural station outside Beijing, tending a herd of about 200 cows.”

Did she regret her choice? Not in the least. The Times goes on to quote an interview she gave in 2008 to The Weekend Australian: “It would have been terrific if Mao had lived … Of course I was 100 percent behind everything that happened in the Cultural Revolution — it was a terrific experience.”

Just how “terrific?” Minimally one million people died during the Cultural Revolution due to persecution by the infamous Red Guards. Religious persecution was intense, and the families of “running dogs” (Chinese whose devotion to Communism was deemed insufficient) were brutalized; there are even reports of the cannibalism of young children by some Red Guards.

In total, roughly 30 million Chinese (possibly as many as 70 million) died under Mao’s reign from enforced starvation or outright murder.

Through it all, American born Dr. Hinton remained a devotee of Chairman Mao. In an interview with NBC News in 2004, journalist Catherine Rampell wrote that “Hinton gushes fervent praise for the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s mass mobilization of Chinese youth to criticize party officials, intellectuals and bourgeois values, from 1966 to 1976.” Dr. Hinton even used archaic and ludicrous Maoist language to denounce the “renegades” and “capitalist roaders” – code terms for freedom-lovers who would not fully bend the knee to Beijing’s dictators.

Dr. Hinton now faces the Judge of all the earth, not the beatific images of Mao Zedong with which she festooned her apartment. How sad. How very sad.

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Inaccurate internet reports have been circulating indicating that the Family Research Council lobbied “against” a congressional resolution condemning a bill proposed in Uganda. The Uganda
bill would have provided for the death penalty for something called “aggravated homosexuality.” Unfortunately, those spreading these false rumors deliberately failed to obtain the facts first.

FRC did not lobby against or oppose passage of the congressional resolution. FRC’s efforts, at the request of Congressional offices, were limited to seeking changes in the language of proposed drafts of the resolution, in order to make it more factually accurate regarding the content of the Uganda bill, and to remove sweeping and inaccurate assertions that homosexual conduct is internationally recognized as a fundamental human right.

FRC does not support the Uganda bill, and does not support the death penalty for homosexuality – nor any other penalty which would have the effect of inhibiting compassionate pastoral, psychological, and medical care and treatment for those who experience same-sex attractions or who engage in homosexual conduct.

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Television anchor Dan Rather had an interesting piece in the Huffington Post yesterday drawing much needed attention to the growing problem of child trafficking and prostitution in the United States. He writes that throughout his 60 years of reporting, few stories have been more shocking:

How many children are being peddled on the streets of Portland and in other cities and towns, to say nothing of the Internet?…The most conservative estimates are that at least 10,000 American children are being victimized. Many experts say they believe it’s closer to 30,000 or more.

Rather talks with law enforcement to learn how it could be possible that so many young people are exploited in such an atrocious way.

… many of the children caught up in this are middle class kids from the area…The girls, sometimes as young as 12, often 13-16, are lured by a “front man” in his mid-to-late teens. He becomes her “boyfriend,” taking her to dinner, buying her nice things, sometimes meeting her parents. The girl eventually moves in with him. Then he says they need money to continue being together. First, she’s enticed to sleep with his friends to pay the rent. Soon she’s turning tricks for what police say is an endless supply of older men willing to pay top money for sex with very young girls. Other times convincing the young adolescent girls to sell themselves happens very quickly.

The Anti-Trafficking of Human Persons division at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services describe the various ways that children in the U.S. are exploited:

In the United States, children are subjected to human trafficking in many different sectors. Examples include prostitution on the streets or in a private residence, club, hotel, spa, or massage parlor; online commercial sexual exploitation; exotic dancing/stripping; agricultural, factory, or meatpacking work; construction; domestic labor in a home; restaurant/bar work; illegal drug trade; door-to-door sales, street peddling, or begging; or hair, nail, and beauty salons. Family members, acquaintances, pimps, employers, smugglers, and strangers traffic children. They often prey upon the children’s vulnerabilities – their hopes for an education, a job, or a better life in another country – and may use psychological intimidation or violence to control the children and gain financial benefits from their exploitation. Trafficked children may show signs of shame or disorientation; be hungry and malnourished; experience traumatic bonding (Stockholm syndrome) and fear government officials, such as police and immigration officers.

This same US government division provides numerous resources for people who might be victim to these crimes. One such resource is a 24-hour hotline that helps victims of trafficking by connecting them with local organizations that can provide help. The number is 1.888.3737.888. See the HHS website for more information on how to assist someone who could be a victim of trafficking or to learn more about this problem.

I am grateful to Dan Rather bringing this dark issue into the media light. Unfortunately, as pointed out by one commenter, the ad for Rather’s story on the network’s website was ironically placed below another ad – one with young girls in bikinis — for “Girls Gone Wild.” If nothing else, we can all agree that there is a deep need to continue to fight against the oversexualization of young girls and the many atrocious crimes that can accompany such objectification.

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I took a friend with me to visit a prisoner in a federal “correctional institute” last week. My friend is a former Ohio State prof, a published author, and a member of my Men’s Bible Study. We’ve been praying for several years for “P,” who is serving eight years for attempted murder.

The three-hour drive was a pleasant one, despite the lousy weather. The prof and I got to swap stories, talk about our families, how we met our wives, all kinds of interesting—at least to us—stuff.

When we arrived at last at the prison, we were confronted by a mocking prison guard. He very quickly told the prof he could not enter the prison. His paperwork—dutifully filled out—had not yet been processed. Even though P had written me saying he’d very much like to have the prof visit, that did not matter.

The guard looked me over suspiciously. He took an inordinate period of time to “study” my ID card. He quickly banned my cell phone and car keys. OK, I can understand why they’re not allowed. The prof would take them back to my car and wait there for me while I went in to see P.

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How can anyone ignore the irony in this awful story reported in the Washington Post yesterday?

A young woman walks out into a field with a pink towel, scissors, and a plastic bag, gives birth to a daughter, cuts the umbilical cord and leaves the baby to die.

Of course she could have had an abortionist legally kill the child.

The Supreme Court case of Doe v. Bolton mandates that an abortion be legal even after viability if an abortion doctor cites emotional or “familial” reasons for the abortion.  During a post-arrest interview the woman said she had been raped, and the prosecutor said the woman got rid of the baby because she was afraid the man she was living with, whom she considered her husband, would break up with her for having another man’s child.  Plenty of legal grounds for a late-term abortion.

Assistant State’s Attorney Renee Battle-Brooks argued that whether she was impregnated because she was raped was irrelevant.  “That doesn’t make [the baby's] life any less valuable,” Battle-Brooks said. “That baby struggled for breath in that plastic bag. She was alone, she was cold and she was hungry.”

Last month a 33-year old Rhode Island woman was sentenced to 25 years for killing her newborn daughter.

The baby was found in a plastic garbage bag under a laundry appliance in the woman’s parents’ home.  Judge Robert Krause of Providence County said, “Not to impose a substantial jail sentence … would simply devalue the life of a child.”  Krause added: “No civilized society is prepared to do that and neither am I.”

My point in raising these cases is not to argue for criminal penalties for women who have abortions – no one in the pro-life movement seeks that – but to show the irony in our law, and the striking quotes from those in the legal system as they recognize and defend the humanity of the youngest of babies.  They sound so much like pro-lifers.  One day, God willing, everyone will speak this way about children, even before birth.

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President Obama was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for 2009. His nomination had to have been entered by February 1st of this year. At that point, as many incredulous pundits have noted, he had been President for just eleven days. Fast work.

Many commentators have ridiculed the choice. “Gobsmacked,” wrote the Washington Post’s serious liberal foreign policy columnist, Jim Hoagland. He employed a British slang term for “slack-jawed in utter amazement.” Liberal writer Ruth Marcus likened the award to Pee-Wee Soccer, where every child gets a trophy just for playing. The New York Times’ house conservative, David Brooks, jeered that Obama should have won all of this year’s prizes, including those for economics and literature. Even for chemistry. After all, Obama’s personal chemistry may be his greatest contribution to the world.

Newsweek’s Howard Fineman called Obama “President of the Earth” and said he would accept in Oslo in December. Even long-time Obama promoters were hard-pressed to see the award as anything but miraculous–an effort, perhaps, by the Nobel Prize selection committee–Norwegian Leftists all–to create their own version of the Burning Bush. Saturday Night Live had fun. Their Obama lookalike noted that he had only nine months of experience “not being George Bush.

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Wednesday night, the Empire State Building in Manhattan shone red and yellow as a tribute to the sixtieth anniversary of the Communist takeover of China.

When lit, the Empire State is a lovely sight.  Yet last night’s display cast a rather ugly glow.  Why?  Because given the nation it is honoring, we must ask the sponsors of this celebration which highlights of China’s history during those sixty years they especially want to honor.

Might it be the murder of Christian missionaries in the late 40s and 50s?  How about the killing of millions of Chinese during Chairman Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” campaign of the mid-fifties? During those years, Communist authorities pressed rural Chinese to modernize, demanding such insanities as backyard steel mills.

China enveloped Tibet in the late 50s. That ancient Buddhist land is still being suppressed and its unique culture eradicated fifty years later. The Dalai Lama and many other Tibetans still live in exile.

In the mid-60s, Chairman Mao initiated the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which left more millions dead. Fanatical Red Guards beat and brutalized anyone who had exposure to Western Culture—and even trashed China’s revered cultural heritage.

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We have been told endlessly that we have witnessed an “historic” day at the UN this week. Indeed, we did. It was a day that many of us could be proud of. A nation’s leader stood at the podium before the General Assembly and addressed representatives of 192 nations who are member-states of the United Nations. Here is part of what that leader said:

The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events. Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth.

Yesterday, the president of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie.

That nation’s leader confronted the delegates to the UN General Assembly with no other weapon than the truth. That is what made this week truly historic. In the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, one word of truth can move the world.

As much as I admire that nation’s leader for speaking truth to power, I regret only that it was not my own nation’s leader. Those powerful words were a portion of the speech delivered by Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. He knows that if Iranian mullahs get an atomic bomb, they could achieve in minutes what Hitler failed to do in years–annihilate the main portion of the Jews. Netanyahu is determined–more determined than the European Union, more determined, apparently, than the current U.S. administration–that Iran will not achieve its goal of nuclear weapons.

The Obama administration has been sending weak and half-hearted signals about the Iranian mullahs’ drive for nuclear weapons. Would the U.S. approve or disapprove if Netanyahu sent Israeli jets to take out Iran’s nuclear sites? I don’t know. I doubt if anyone in or out of this administration knows.

Former Carter National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski raised eyebrows this week by saying the U.S. should be prepared to take strong and forceful measures to prevent a clash in the Mideast–by confronting any Israeli planes seeking to make a preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear sites.

“We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?… They have the choice of turning back or not…”

And if they don’t? Are we really talking about shooting down Israeli jets? Are we really prepared to defend the Iranian mullah’s terror regime?

This would certainly represent change, but not in any productive or beneficial way. Seemingly, the U.S. cannot stop the Iranian mullahs from their mad rush to get nuclear weapons, but our current administration is being urged to consider stopping the Israelis from doing it.

Let us hope that Brzezinski is not speaking for the Obama administration. As for the Carter administration, for which he did speak, it should be remembered that more people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America lost their lives and their liberty under the Carter administration than under any U.S. presidency since World War II. Communists made major gains in the face of Carter’s invertebrate leadership. I guess that’s what they give Peace Prizes for.

We’re told that President Obama’s presiding over the UN Security Council is historic. Surely it is. Did he, I wonder, mention the Gulag with its ten million victims? Did he refer at all to China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which claimed ten million lives? Or the killing fields of Cambodia? Or the Rwandan genocide? We are told that the reason this week is historic is because an American President has never before presided over the UN Security Council.

The UN Security Council is powerful, the media informs us. It is important. Really? If the UN Security Council is so powerful, why is it the case that the UN Security Council did nothing about any of the horrors mentioned above? I doubt that the UN Security Council even passed one of its typically toothless resolutions to deplore millions of human deaths. Or, shall we mention the UN Population Fund–which is itself complicit in 50 million forced abortions in China?

Driving to work this week, I spied a 1967 Chevy truck in front of me. It sported Maryland license plates. Above the plate was this word: Historic. Now, there’s an appropriate use of this most overused word. See the USA in your Chevrolet–and have no part in that disgraceful truckling to any general assembly of tin pot despots and ditzy dictators.

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When the World Congress of Families gathered in Amsterdam in the Netherlands last month, it was not considered friendly territory for the conservative, pro-family principles espoused by most of the international delegates. The city has museums devoted to sex and drugs, and its red-light district is treated as a major tourist attraction. Radical feminist groups decried the event, and the offices of one Dutch organization involved in planning for the WCF were even vandalized, with obscenities and anti-Christian slogans being painted on the walls. The Dutch media sought to stir up controversy over the participation in the Congress by several members of the Dutch parliament and one cabinet minister (who sent a video message the opening day). Five scheduled Dutch participants withdrew from the Congress shortly before it began over concerns that “anti-gay” messages would be promoted.

In the end, protests against the Congress mostly fizzled, and the delegates focused on issues such as the problem of depopulation in the countries of Europe. The Congress featured the European premiere of “The Demographic Bomb” (a sequel to the film “Demographic Winter”), which had its world premiere at Family Research Council on June 17.

Peter Sprigg and Pat Fagan represented Family Research Council at the event, with Dr. Fagan making two presentations—one at a breakout session on day care, and one major address on “Family Diversity and Political Freedom”. He spoke of how the culture of the traditional family, based on lifelong monogamy, is now being challenged by a competing culture rooted in a sexual ideal that is in some sense “polyamorous,” in that it is built on the expectation of multiple sexual partners through the life course. Dr. Fagan explained some of the political implications of these competing cultures, and offered a suggestion as to how they might be able to co-exist in a free society by insuring that all parents, of any viewpoint, have greater control over the education and upbringing of their own children.

Although liberals claim to place a high value on “dialogue,” one of the few who actually came to the Congress to engage in it was a Dutch judge and U.N. official, Jaap Doek, who defended the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CROC) and expressed dismay that the U.S. has failed to ratify it. Pro-family activists are concerned that the “rights” of children established by the treaty would undermine parental authority in the home, but Doek contended that it only imposes limits and obligations on the state, not upon parents.

Austin Ruse of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, or C-FAM (and the husband of FRC’s Cathy Cleaver Ruse) offered a darker vision of the impact of the U.N. and international agreements. He delivered an address describing how radical elites have attempted to establish a “right” to abortion in international law. The “soft law” strategy involves inserting code words for abortion (such as “reproductive health”) in international documents and then asserting (falsely) that it is a matter of “customary international law.” The “hard law” strategy involves United Nations committees charged with monitoring compliance with actual international treaties and conventions. Although no “right to abortion” has ever been established in the text of such treaties, these committees will often tell member countries that they must protect such a “right” to be in compliance (for example, with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, or CEDAW). Ruse declared bluntly that such “new norms” are being forced upon nations undemocratically “through treachery, lies, deceit and raw power.”

At times it was striking how much people from different countries had in common. For example, at one session, an American state senator from Georgia, Nancy Schaefer, and a lawyer from Sweden, Ruby Harrold-Claesson, both decried the abuses sometimes engaged in by child protective services.

However, there was one notable difference evident in the way American conservatives and Europeans see “pro-family” policy. Most Americans take a more libertarian approach, believing that the best thing government can do for families is to stay out of their way. Yet it was evident that “pro-family” politicians from Europe and other countries see government intervention on behalf of the family as the best “pro-family” policy.  For instance, Andre Rouveot, the Dutch cabinet minister who addressed the Congress by video, touted the creation of his Ministry for Youth and Families as a great step forward. Yet most American conservatives do not see the creation of a federal Department of Education as something that improved American education. Australian Member of Parliament Kevin Andrews discussed efforts by some countries to provide child care and family leave as pro-family because they make it easier for working women to become mothers; whereas many Americans would argue what is needed is to make it easier for mothers to stay home.

The Congress ended with the adoption of the Amsterdam Declaration, which cited as its touchstone the statement in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that “the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society, and is entitled to protection by society and the State.” Several countries are already in contention for the honor of hosting the next World Congress of Families, which has clearly established itself as the premier international gathering of pro-family scholars and activists.

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Recently President Obama signaled to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee his treaty ratification priorities for the 111^th Congress.  Not surprisingly, the Convention to End All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is on the list as the lone “Human Rights” treaty Obama wants ratified.  A pleasant surprise, however, is the conspicuous absence of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).  Both treaties are extremely pernicious and the United States should ratify neither, as Pat Fagan, Bill Saunders, and I explain here.  It’s good to see that for now we only need to worry about one of them.

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Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen square massacre in Beijing. When BBC reporter James Reynolds tried to enter the square to cover any memorials that might be taking place, he was met with resistance and a bizarre display of what can only be described as umbrella censorship:

The earpiece-umbrella guys are indeed weird, but it’s a sign of the times that apparatchiki would be wearing shorts and alien T-shirts.

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On Friday government officials from the regime of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela raided the offices of Globovision, the only remaining television broadcaster in the country that openly criticizes Chavez.  The pretext for the raid has something to do with the station’s news reporting on an earthquake in Venezuela in early May, which asserted that the government had been slow to report on the incident.   According to press reports and comments from worried United Nations officials, Globovision stands to lose its license, which would mean the end of the last media outlet that dares to disagree with Chavez or his increasingly oligarchic powers.  Interestingly, Venezuelan government officials characterized the Globovision report as “hate speech” that risked alarming the country and “destabilizing” the populace. Government’s facile use of such expressions is reason for alarm.

As The Washington Post notes this morning, Latin American caudillos are no novelty, but the silence of the United States (i.e., the Obama administration) in the face of such repression is a first.  Not a first, but similarly worrisome, is the news that Nancy Pelosi, fresh from accusing the C.I.A. of lying to Congress in private briefings, is off to Beijing with nary a word prior to her trip of criticism of China’s abusive human rights practices.  Time was, U.S. Democrats like former Rep. Dick Gephardt (Mo.) were among the leaders of efforts to hold the Chinese accountable for their abuses of workers, and other Democrats spoke of Chinese denial of religious freedom and its record of forced abortion and sterilization.  Pelosi instead wants to engage the oligarchs in Beijing only on climate change.   But it is the climate for political freedom that is turning adverse.

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On March 4, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Omar Ahmad Al Bashir, the president of Sudan. The warrant charged Bashir with individual responsibility on five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes. Specially, it alleged he is criminally responsibility for a campaign of murder, rape, torture, pillage, and forcible transfer against the civilian, and largely Islamic, population of Darfur. The ICC alleges the campaign, conducted over the 5 year period from April 2003 to July 2008, was planned at the highest levels of the Sudanese government. The attacks were carried out by the Sudanese armed forces, the Sudanese police force, the Sudanese national security service, and allied “Janjaweed” militias. The warrant claims Bashir either coordinated the design of the campaign or, as head of state, used state agencies to implement the campaign.

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Last night President Obama went on the Tonight Show.  Deciding to go off-teleprompter, the President made a joke at the expense of the disabled, saying that his bowling skills might qualify him for “the Special Olympics.”  In other words, America was treated to the spectacle of her President engaging in a less-funny version of the traditional Rodney Dangerfield send-up (“I tell ya, I don’t get no respect.  I went bowling the other day, and my wife Michelle tells me…”) Lovely.  (It should be noted that Obama has since apologized for the comment.)

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Last week, FRC filed a friend of the court brief in a case before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The ECHR is considering a challenge to Ireland’s laws on abortion, which restrict access to abortion unless the woman’s life is in danger. FRC was one of 3 groups invited to file an unusual “joint” brief by the ECHR, and the only pro-life group in the USA invited to do so. (The others were SPUC of the United Kingdom and the European Center for Law & Justice from Brussels.)

The case is important because the European system of jurisprudence is quite limited when it comes to social issues. In other words, though there is a European Convention of Human Rights that binds all European nations that have ratified it (including Ireland), the resolution of “social issues” is left to the laws of the individual state to decide. Thus, it should not be possible for the ECHR to create a European-wide “right” to abortion.

Of course, the U.S. Supreme Court created a right to abortion where none existed under our Constitution. Thus, just as our Court ignored the wording of the Constitution and principles of federalism to overturn the laws of all 50 states on abortion, it is conceivable the ECHR could do the same thing. In fact, pro-abortion groups have filed briefs urging it to do so. Thus, it was important for FRC – in alliance with our good friends of the Alliance Defense Fund – to file a brief urging the ECHR to stay out of these matters and to leave the resolution of the issue to the member states. Click here for the brief itself.

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The pro-abortion group Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) and its partners requested and were granted a hearing today at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Organization of American States according to their recent newsletter (see p. 2).

The Commission will hold a hearing today titled the “Risks and vulnerabilities affecting defenders of women’s rights in the Americas,” raising the specter of human rights activists and defenders of women’s rights being “affected”. You can review the Commission program here.

But what is CRR’s goal? Legal rights for women? Is it the legalization of abortion? CRR is more ambitious. Their newsletter references a previous letter they sent to the United Nations which makes it clear that they are not so much trying to protect human rights defenders or defenders of women’s rights as they are trying to get international legal bodies to include abortion providers under the legal designation of “human rights defender.” If they are successful, abortion providers would be protected under the 1999 UN Declaration of Human Rights Defenders.

It would be a travesty for international bodies to equate those who perform abortions, including those who perform partial birth abortions, with those who advocate fundamental human rights of others.

CRR in their letter raises violence against abortion providers as one of their key arguments. Violence against abortionists is wrong and should be condemned. But CRR goes much further. They are in fact making the case that any restrictions that would affect abortion providers’ practices would constitute an abuse of human rights defenders.

Indeed, CRR spends considerable time defending Dr. George Tiller of Kansas, an abortionist known for his late-term abortions (and advertising internationally for his services). It is odd that they would single out Dr. Tiller as a human rights paragon, until you realize that they oppose even peaceful protests at abortion clinics such as his, even when they acknowledge the fact that such protests are constitutionally protected.

CRR also opposes state laws that would require abortion clinics to have the same health standards as ambulatory clinics–regulations that would actually protect the health of women obtaining abortions. Indeed, CRR goes so far as asking the UN to “investigate” the United States for state and federal laws that conflict with their views. Again, violence against abortionists is wrong, period. But peaceful protests? Parental notification laws? Laws ensuring medical the competency of abortion providers? They want a UN investigation. Perhaps even more brazen, CRR wants international bodies to investigate cases of “smear campaigns” against abortion providers, in which any public campaign against such abortionists occur. They oppose the mere existence of legal restrictions because it would be burdensome to the abortionist, something most people think might be legitimate for physicians performing surgery on their patients. What about legal liability? Nope, CRR wants none of that either. The kicker may be that CRR wants these international bodies to impose fines on states that who disagree with them. Why? So they force local law enforcement agencies to implement “human rights teaching” on abortion in their training programs.

And these are people that many pro-choicers in Congress have tried to get you to fund with your taxes. I suppose if you can cast this asprotecting human rights defenders, it might just work.

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      On August 26, 2008, the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) asked the public for comments about rules it proposed to protect the rights of conscience of health care providers – in particular, to permit them to refuse to assist in, provide, or refer patients for abortions.  These conscience rights were created by three historic federal statutes known more commonly as the Church, Coats, and Weldon Amendments.

     The Family Research Council and several other groups filed comments on September 25^th responding to HHS.  Get a copy of them here.

     Here is a summary of our main points:

• HHS’s proposed rules (regulations) are needed because many participants in the health care system are violating the Church, Coats, and Weldon Amendments. Many intended beneficiaries of these landmark civil rights laws – intended to protect health care providers’ right of religious and moral conscience – do not know their rights under the law. HHS regulations are needed to clarify the extent of these statutory protections.
• HHS should adopt a fertilization-based definition of pregnancy (and thus abortion) because that is consistent with the prevailing medical dictionary definitions, religious thought, and medical science on when life begins: these are, after all, conscience protections, so they should protect the conscience’s of the various health care providers.
• Even if HHS does not adopt a fertilization-based definition of pregnancy, it should reject the implantation-based definition in HHS’s human-subject regulations for a number of reasons.

 o   For example, non-uterine, ectopic pregnancies demonstrate that uterine implantation cannot define the onset of pregnancy.

• As a final alternative, HHS should recognize that the reasonable, subjective religious or moral conviction of the individual or institutional health care provider should govern, given the statutory focus on protecting conscience. Religious freedom and conscience in this country plainly reflect the views of the individual or institution, not the views of third parties.
• Recognizing a right of conscience does not discriminate against women or violate any concepts mandated in Roe v. Wade and its progeny which do not purport to require any particular health care provider to participate in abortions.
• HHS should enforce the Church, Coats, and Weldon Amendments in the same manner as it enforces other civil rights statutes, like Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
• HHS’s Title X regulations, which require grant recipients to counsel and refer for abortions, appear to violate the law as set forth in the Church, Coats, and Weldon Amendments.

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Today, the Federal Register published the Department of Health and Human Services’ notice of proposed rulemaking that seeks to ensure that HHS “funds do not support coercive or discriminatory policies or practices in violation of federal law” (lower case mine).  The notice for these proposed conscience protection rules can be found in PDF via this link.  The deadline for filing comments is September 25, 2008.

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