Month: February 2019

Washington D.C., Feb 1, 2019 / 11:00 pm (CNA).- Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) told CNA that he thinks that embattled Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D), should step down from office or face a bipartisan-led recall campaign.

Northam has been the subject of sustained criticism following his public defense of a proposed bill to allow in-labor abortions in the state. On Friday, a photograph from his 1984 medical school yearbook was published, which identified Northam as one of two figures: one wearing blackface costume and the other Ku Klux Klan robes.

In a Friday interview with CNA Sasse, said that, following his comments on abortion, the photograph was yet another sign that Northam had “no regard for human dignity.”

“Thirty-five years before he was defending infanticide it looks like he was in a racist photo,” Sasse told CNA. “This guy is a creep, and it’s inexcusable.”

While many prominent Democrats declined to comment on Northam’s support for the abortion bill, members of his own party have joined calls for his resignation, including his predecessor as governor, Terry McAuliffe, along with Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Kamala Harris (D-CA).

“If he still has a job on Monday morning, I think Republicans and Democrats should be working together in Virginia to get signatures for a recall petition,” said Sasse.

Northam issued an apology Friday evening for the picture, saying he was “deeply sorry.” He also said that in his comments on WTOP, he was referring to babies who were born with deformities.

While many are now speculating that Northam could resign as early as this weekend, Sasse told CNA that his unfitness for public life is apparent from his abortion comments alone.

“Gov. Northam’s comments [on the Virginia abortion bill] were essentially a defense of the idea that after a baby is born and she’s alive and on that table, doctors would, bizarrely, keep her warm and give her a little bit of comfort while there was a debating society conversation about whether or not infanticide was appropriate for this moment,” said Sasse.

On Wednesday, Northam spoke on radio station WTOP in favor of the Repeal Act, a bill that would have relaxed laws regarding third-trimester abortions. The bill’s lead sponsor, Del. Kathy Tran (D-Fairfax) admitted that there was nothing in her bill that would prevent an abortion from being carried out while a mother was in active labor.

When questioned about this provision in the bill, Northam said that such a case would see the newborn infant be given “comfort care” while a discussion ensued about whether or not to pursue medical intervention. The bill eventually was tabled.

Sasse described Northam’s comments as “crazy” and told CNA they are an indication that Northam “shouldn’t be in public life.”

The new congressional session has seen Sasse take a leading role the issues of religious liberty and the defense of the unborn.

In December, Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) questioned a judicial nominee from Omaha about his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organisation, suggesting his membership could disqualify him as a judge.

In response, Sasse submitted a unanimous consent resolution in January defending the group and underscoring the constitution prohibition of “religious tests” being imposed on candidates for public office. This measure was passed, though Hirono called it an “alt-right” agenda.

Sasse, who is not Catholic, told CNA that he was inspired to write the resolution by the oath of office he swore to defend the Constitution, which forbids religious tests, and that he feels the oppression of any religious group is “a sign that everybody’s religious liberty is at risk.”

Additionally, he added, “I represent a whole bunch of Catholics.”

Nebraska is nearly one-quarter Catholic.

The Knights of Columbus does “unbelievable good work on behalf of their neighbors,” Sasse said. The senator characterized the questions from Harris and Hirono as an attempt to “institute a religious test for being a judge,” which is “an attack on people in my state.”

After the resolution passed, Hirono said that Sasse was “embracing” an “alt-right position” with his resolution–something the Nebraska senator said was “crazy stuff” and “absolutely” an act of cowardice.

“It is truly bizarre for her to double down and now try to call Catholics racist because they’re exercising a constitutional right to love their neighbor,” he said.

Sasse said it is notable that Hirono did not take the floor to object to his resolution when it was being considered, and instead took to the Senate floor “when nobody else was back in town.”

“[Hirono] made this bizarre speech implying that people in the Knights of Columbus are not just religiously bigoted, but also racist–I don’t know how to make any sense of the kind of stuff she’s saying, but she didn’t come to the floor and say it in front of her colleagues,” said Sasse.

“I’d love it if she would.”

“These people need to check their consciences. We believe the reason you’re in public life is to maintain a framework of ordered liberty and to celebrate human dignity. That’s what American public life is about,” Sasse added.

“The laws exist to protect the most vulnerable among us, and then people can go out and love their neighbor and serve in their community and join the Knights of Columbus and be entrepreneurs and invite people to your church or synagogue. That’s what America is about, and you have to start with a clear understanding of defending human dignity, and that starts first and foremost with defending the most vulnerable”

On Monday, Sasse will attempt to get another bill passed by unanimous consent: the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. This bill would penalize doctors and medical professionals who do not provide medical care to infants who survive abortions.

“I don’t think there’s any legitimate argument that can be made to oppose my legislation,” Sasse told CNA. While he hopes that none of his colleagues will object to his bill, if they do, he said, they should “do it in front of the 320 million Americans that are their bosses.”

“And they need to show what side they’re on. It’s a pretty simple question: are you on the side of these vulnerable little babies, or are you on the side of Gov. Northam and his defense of infanticide?”

Sasse told CNA that it is clear where he stands.

“We believe,” he said, “in the dignity of everybody.”

[…]

Washington D.C., Feb 1, 2019 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- Abortion rights’ advocates have asked the US Supreme Court for an emergency stay of a Louisiana law that requires abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.

The bipartisan law, known as the Unsafe Abortion Protection Act, or Act 620, was effectively upheld by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Jan. 18 when it rejected a petition to rehear a challenge to the law.

A three judge panel of the court had already upheld Act 620 in September 2018.

If the stay is not granted, the law will take effect Feb. 4.

The Louisiana attorney general, Jeff Landry, has filed the state’s opposition to the emergency stay application. He argued the court is unlikely to reverse the Fifth Circuit’s decision, and that there is no likelihood of irreparable injury if the law is allowed to take effect.

“As we have argued throughout this litigation, we firmly believe that Act 620 contains common-sense requirements that will protect the health and safety of Louisiana women,” Landry said Jan. 31.

Act 620 was authored by Democratic State Rep. Katrina Jackson, who authored the legislation and is chair of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus. She has said the law is about “the safety of women.”

It was passed in 2014 by an 88-5 vote in the Louisiana House, and a 34-3 vote in the Senate.

The Unsafe Abortion Protection Act requires that abortion doctors have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their clinic.

The law also clarifies that informed consent protections also apply to chemical abortions, procured by ingesting mifepristone, and that chemical abortions must be reported anonymously to the Department of Health and Hospitals, which already tracks surgical abortions. Doctors who perform more than five abortions per year must also maintain proper licensing.

When the Fifth Circuit upheld Act 620 in September, it found that the law does not impose a substantial burden on women seeking to procure abortion.

Landry stated that plaintiffs challenging the law – who say it would leave only one doctor in the state able to perform abortions – have misrepresented “the Fifth Circuit’s reasoning in upholding Act 620.”

“As the Fifth Circuit explained, one plaintiff physician unilaterally refused to submit documentation necessary for him to obtain admitting privileges,” Landry noted. “Another physician at the same clinic threatened to cease performing abortions if Act 620 goes into effect, albeit with shifting justification, and despite his already having admitting privileges that comply with Act 620.”

The attorney general continued: “Plaintiffs refuse to grapple with those facts, and instead engage in ad hominem attacks on highly respected Fifth Circuit judges. We will continue to fight to defend our laws.”

Act 620 was challenged in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2016 Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt decision.

In that case, the high court struck down a Texas law that required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, and abortion clinics to meet the standards for ambulatory surgical centers. In the 5-3 vote, the majority found that the law put an “undue burden” on a women’s right to an abortion, posing a “substantial obstacle” to that right without showing the necessary benefits of its regulations to women’s health.

Considering Louisiana’s law in light of Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Fifth Circuit wrote that “the facts in the instant case are remarkably different from those that occasioned the invalidation of the Texas statute in WWH.”

“Here, unlike in Texas, the Act does not impose a substantial burden on a large fraction of women under WWH and other controlling Supreme Court authority. Careful review of the record reveals stark differences between the record before us and that which the Court considered in WWH.”

“The Louisiana Act passes muster even under the stringent requirements of WWH,” wrote Circuit Judge Jerry E. Smith.

Similarly, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in September ruled that Missouri may enforce its own law mandating that doctors who perform abortions have hospital privileges and that abortion clinics to have the same standards as similar outpatient surgical centers.

The Eighth Circuit also cited the Hellerstedt case, saying that decision analyzed purported benefits of the law at issue related to abortion in Texas, not Missouri, and that it found courts should consider the asserted benefits of a law.

Fifth Circuit Judge James L. Dennis dissented from the court’s decision not to rehear the challenge to Act 620, asserting it is “in clear conflict” with the Hellerstedt decision and that “the panel majority’s attempt to distinguish WWH is meritless because it is based on an erroneous and distorted version of the undue burden test required by WWH and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey.”

When the Unsafe Abortion Protection Act was passed in 2014, there were five abortion clinics in Louisiana. By the time the Fifth Circuit upheld the law in September 2018, there were three, in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport.

The day before it declined to rehear the challenge to Act 620, the Fifth Circuit vacated a previous injunction barring Texas from stripping Planned Parenthood affiliates of Medicaid funding.

Circuit Judge Edith Jones affirmed that Texas has the right to exclude a healthcare provider from Medicaid funds, and criticized the Planned Parenthood affiliates’ argument that the Office of Inspector General has insufficient expertise to determine the qualifications of abortion providers.

[…]

Bismarck, N.D., Feb 1, 2019 / 05:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A bill outlawing dilation and evacuation abortions passed the North Dakota House of Representatives Thursday.

The practice is the most common type of abortion performed in the second trimester.

After the Jan. 31 House vote, which was 78-13, the bill proceeds to the Senate and then the Republican governor.

Under the bill, doctors performing a dilation and evacuation abortion outside of emergency cases would be charged with a felony. Offenders could be punished by a $10,000 fine and up to five years’ imprisonment. Women who procure or attempt to procure the procedure could not be prosecuted.

If passed into law, the bill would not become effective until the state attorney general recommends that it is “reasonably probable” that it would be upheld as constitutional.

Similar laws in other states have faced legal challenges from abortion rights’ proponents.

The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently heard oral arguments over an analogous law in Arkansas.

Mississippi and West Virginia have already enacted laws banning dilation and evacuation abortions, and an Ohio law against the procedure will take effect in March.

Similar laws face injunctions in Alabama, Kansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas.

North Dakota’s fole abortion provider is the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo.

Another pro-life bill was approved by the state House Jan. 28 by a 73-16 vote. This bill would oblige abortion providers to inform women receiving chemical abortions that if they change their mind, they could still carry out a live birth.

If a woman has only taken mifepristone, the first medication for chemical abortion, taking progesterone can stop the abortion.

[…]

New York City, N.Y., Feb 1, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A scientist in at Columbia University in New York is conducting controversial gene-editing experiments on human embryos, according to a recent report from NPR.

Dieter Egli, a developmental biologist, is experimenting with CRISPR technology to edit genes in order to prevent certain hereditary genetic diseases and mutations, such as blindness or cystic fibrosis.

In his lab, Egli uses human ova and sperm, along with the CRISPR tool, to create genetically edited embryos. He told NPR that the human embryos that he creates and edits are not allowed to develop beyond a day.

This kind of research is currently banned from receiving federal funding, but can be conducted using private funding. The Food and Drug Administration prohibits gene modification on viable human embryos, which means any genetically modified human embryos must be destroyed, rather than brought to term.

While Egli said that he wants to use the research to prevent diseases, some scientists worry about the ethical implications of such research if it were used haphazardly.

Already in China, a scientist has been condemned both by his university and by civil authorities for creating genetically modified babies, using CRISPR, for seven couples. Researcher He Jiankui claimed in November that these embryos had already resulted in the birth of a set of genetically modified twins, though there has been no independent confirmation of his claim.

In a letter signed by 120 Chinese scientists, He was condemned for ignoring ethical guidelines. The letter called the gene manipulation a “Pandora’s box,” and said “The biomedical ethics review for this so-called research exists in name only. Conducting direct human experiments can only be described as crazy.”

Fyodor Urnov, associate director of the Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences in Seattle, told NPR that he found it “really disturbing” that gene-editing research was continuing in the United States.

“As we’ve learned from the events in China, it is no longer a hypothetical that somebody will just go ahead and go rogue and do something dangerous, reckless, unethical,” Urnov says.

One of the biggest ethical concerns of the medical community regarding gene editing is that it could lead to the creation of “designer babies” and a society in which genetically modified people are seen as superior to genetically unedited people.

“Anyone with a connection to the Internet will be able to download the recipe to make a designer baby,” Urnov says. “And then the question becomes: ‘What’s to prevent them from using it?’ As we learned in the past year: apparently nothing.”

Catholic bioethicists have previously raised serious concerns about gene-editing research and technology.

Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Director of Education for The National Catholic Bioethics Center, told CNA in 2017 that embryonic gene editing is morally objectionable because it treats “very young humans…not as ends, but as mere means or research fodder to achieve particular investigative goals.”

At the time, he was responding to news that a team of scientists at Oregon Health and Science University had used CRISPR to edit the genes of human embryos. While gene editing may have laudable goals, such as preventing diseases, the means of killing human embryos cannot justify those intrinsically evil ends, he said.

“Their value as human beings is profoundly denigrated every time they are created, experimented upon, and then killed. Moreover, if such embryos were to grow up, as will doubtless occur in the future, there are likely to be unintended effects from modifying their genes,” Fr. Pacholczyk added.

While gene editing research is beginning to be explored and discussed in various countries throughout the world, most places have urged extreme caution and have laws in place that thus far prohibit genetically edited pregnancies.

Urnov told NPR that the research should be stopped until every ethical dilemma can be addressed.

“We need to hit the pause button and keep it pressed until we understand how do we proceed in a way that minimizes the risk of people going rogue,” Urnov says.

J. Benjamin Hurlbut, an associate professor of biology and society at Arizona State University, told NPR that he would also urge extreme caution for gene editing technologies.

“If we’ve learned anything from what’s happened in China, it’s that the urge to race ahead pushes science to shoot first and ask questions later,” he told NPR. “But this is a domain where we should be asking questions first. And maybe never shooting. What’s the rush?”

[…]