New York Times Pam Belluck A federal judge has ruled that the United States government must make the most common morning-after pill available over the counter for all ages, instead of requiring a prescription for girls 16 and under. The decision, on a fraught and politically controversial subject, comes after a decade-long fight over who should have access to the pill and under what circumstances, and it counteracts an unprecedented move by the Obama administration's Health and Human Services secretary who in 2011 overruled a recommendation by the Food and Drug Administration to make the pill available for all ages without a prescription. Read more at mobile.nytimes.com ...
LifeandLibertyReport.com Tom Hoefling To believe that abortion is legal in America you have to believe several monstrous Big Lies: 1. That courts make our laws, even though the Constitution only grants lawmaking power to the legislative branch. 2. That our equal rights come from the arbitrary whims of men and can therefore be alienated, even though our nation's charter asserts just the opposite, that our rights come from our Creator and that they are therefore unalienable. Any law, judicial opinion, or executive action that denies the equal right of any innocent person to live is lawless. It is null and void. "This natural law, being as old as mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, from this original.”
-- William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Law of England (1765)
"True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrong-doing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good men in vain, although neither have any effect on the wicked. It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal a part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by Senate or People, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for He is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is commonly called punishment ..."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, 59 - 47 B.C.
"Human law is law only by virtue of its accordance with right reason; and thus it is manifest that it flows from the eternal law. And in so far as it deviates from right reason it is called an unjust law; in such case it is no law at all, but rather a species of violence."
-- Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Ia-Ilae, q. xciii, art. 3, ad 2m.
"Government...should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of natural rights of its members, and every government, which has not this in view, as its principle object, is not a government of the legitimate kind."
-- James Wilson
"[A]ll men are equally bound by the laws of nature, or to speak more properly, the laws of the Creator."
-- Samuel Adams
"Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature."
-- Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists, The Report of the Committee of Correspondence to the Boston Town Meeting, Nov. 20, 1772
"The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained."
-- George Washington, 1789
From a citizen of Iowa, to our legislators:
First, let me say that HF 138 is righteous, lawful legislation. It is in perfect accord with the laws of nature and of nature's God.
It lines up perfectly with the stated self-evident natural law moral principles of our national charter, the Declaration of Independence.
It fulfills all of the clauses of the stated purposes of the document you swore before God to support and defend, the U.S. Constitution, and its explicit, imperative requirement in the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments that no innocent person be deprived of life, and that all persons, in every jurisdiction, in every State, be provided with the equal protection of the laws.
It fulfills every word of Article One, Section 1 of the Iowa Constitution which you also swore to God and the people of our great State to uphold.
Contrarily, HF 171 is utterly immoral, completely unconstitutional, and quite obviously unlawful. While defining children in the womb as persons, it fails to provide equal protection to all of those little persons, as the supreme law of the land absolutely requires, without exception.
In fact, it brazenly, explicitly, spells out which disfavored classes of innocent persons can be killed under the color of a lawless "law."
In Roe vs. Wade, abortion-supporting Justice Blackmun and his colleagues in the majority, while openly acknowledging the obvious fact that the Constitution "of course" absolutely, explicitly, requires equal protection for all persons, knew that they needed the fig leaf of the dehumanization of the child, the denial of the obvious, plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face fact that the child in the womb is in fact a human person.
Conversely, the writers of regulatory legislation like HF 171 go far beyond the gross injustice of Roe by admitting to the obvious personhood of the child, and then allowing disfavored classes of those persons to be slaughtered anyway.
Frankly, unlike Judge Blackmun, they don't even have a poor fig leaf. They're standing buck naked and helpless, morally, constitutionally, legally, and politically.
Every one of you who has a conscience that remains in any part un-seared, and a mind that still maintains some connection to logic, moral reason, and basic American morality, I beg you, just start doing the right thing. Keep your oath. Let God strategize the outcome for once. Please.
Adopt the decent, moral, statesmanlike attitude of our wise first President, George Washington: "If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God." Respectfully,
Tom Hoefling
Lohrville, Iowa
An important letter from Representative Greg Heartsill. Please share.
An Open Letter to the Pro-Life Community March 4, 2013 Dear Pro-Life Friends, Every once in a while it becomes necessary for a movement to take a step back and ask itself some very important and fundamental questions. Questions like “What is our objective?” and “What are we doing to meet that objective?” The pro-life movement is at such a point. After 40 years and 55 million disposed lives, it is insane for us to keep insisting on doing the same, incremental approach over and over again, and yet expect different results. Ask any self-proclaimed pro-life activist or politician, “When does life begin?” They will answer, with rare exception, “At conception.” Life begins at conception. Together, we all profess this truth. But professing belief in a truth and taking action on that truth are two entirely different things. Since 1973, pro-life organizations have been aggressively trying to circumvent the egregious U.S. Supreme Court decision, Roe vs. Wade, all the while hoping to someday stack the court with pro-life justices that would lead to its eventual overturn. Despite all our efforts since then, this strategy has proved to have very little effect on ending abortion. Perhaps instead of nibbling around the edges of Roe, we should have attacked it head on by using its own words against it. In his assenting opinion, Justice Henry Blackmun gives us the very antidote to his own decision: “If the state determines that a fetus is a person, then of course all protections of the 14th Amendment apply.” Here are the keys to victory over Roe: If a state establishes personhood, then the justification and rationale for abortion collapses. Last month, my good friend and fellow legislator, Representative Tom Shaw, introduced a bill (House File 138) that would define personhood in the State of Iowa as beginning at the moment of conception. This bill states nothing more than what we in the pro-life community have been saying for the past 4 decades, what we have known biblically for millennia, and what modern science has been able to corroborate through the advances of technology: Life begins at conception. As someone who firmly believes that life begins at conception, and as a newly minted legislator in the Iowa House of Representatives, I was proud to be the very first co-sponsor of this bill. I was also very pleased when seven other colleagues co-sponsored this bill as well. Now that we have legislation in the Iowa House of Representatives that will codify the very truth that we claim we believe, something very odd and very noticeable is missing from the picture: Support from several prominent pro-life, pro-family groups in Iowa. Why? This is what we believe as pro-lifers, right? Life begins at conception, right? We want to see an end to the slaughter of innocent life, right? Then why do some pro-life organizations sit silent? I happen to know that House File 138 hasn’t slipped by unnoticed given the volume of emails I’ve received as a co-sponsor of the bill. I’ve been told that one of the absent pro-life groups is concerned about the “messaging” of the bill. Really? The message of House File 138 is that life begins at conception and that the life of the child in the womb should be afforded all the rights, privileges, and equal protection that every other life is afforded under our country’s founding documents. Are we really afraid of that message? Or are we afraid of the narrative used by the abortion industry that characterizes us falsely? We say that we believe in life at conception. Why not act upon it? Why not make a public stand for it? As the legislative “funnel” deadline draws near, this is not a time for timidity and seclusion. For those pro-life organizations that have chosen to sit on the sidelines, your absence is more noticeable than your presence. Your silence speaks volumes. To see the list of organizations that have registered their declaration on House File 138, check out the following web link: http://coolice.legis.iowa.gov/Cool-ICE/default.asp?Category=Lobbyist&Service=DspReport&ga=85&&hbill=HF138 Please go to this link to see if your pro-life organization has weighed in on House File 138. If they haven’t, then maybe they need to hear from you. You should know what their justification is for being silent on a bill that defines life as beginning at conception. We should not expect God to bless our efforts in this battle if we are unwilling to have the courage to stand on our convictions, and if we are unwilling to back up our words with action. Either you believe that life begins at conception or you don’t. If you don’t believe it, then have the courage to admit it. But if you are out there boldly proclaiming it, then stand by it. Don’t waver. Lead the charge (or at least come along when the charge is being led by others). I submit to you that if you are not willing to defend life beginning at conception, then you really don’t believe in it. Edmund Burke once said, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Choose this day where you will stand on recognizing personhood for the unborn. I have staked out my position. How about you? Respectfully submitted, Representative Greg Heartsill
 Rep. Tom Shaw of Iowa Radio Iowa By O. Kay Henderson A group of Republican legislators has introduced legislation that would make all abortions illegal in Iowa and any doctor who performs an abortion in Iowa would face murder charges. “What the bill does is it defines what a person is,” says Representative Tom Shaw, a Republican from Laurens who is the bill’s lead sponsor. “We put it right underneath our murder statute. This is in keeping with Roe v Wade where Justice Blackman said that if the state ever defined the fetus to be a person, then, of course, it would have all the protections of the 14th amendment. ...” *excerpt* “We just kind of sat down and thought, ‘We’re making this way too hard. We should be following what the Supreme Court said in their opinion,’” Shaw says. “And so the bill just merely defines who a person is and it defines a person from the moment of conception when the zygote is formed until natural death.” *excerpt* “...we should not determine whether a person’s life is worth living based on their age or their stage of biological development,” Shaw says.
“Our fathers, recognizing God as the author of human life, proclaimed it a ‘self evident truth’ that every human being holds from the Creator an inalienable right to live … If this right be denied, no other can be acknowledged. If there be exceptions to this central, this universal proposition, that all men, without respect to complexion or condition, hold from the Creator the right to live, who shall determine what portion of the community shall be slain? And who shall perpetrate the murders?”
-- Joshua R. Giddings, abolishionist, 1858
1 707.1 Murder defined.
2 1. A person who kills another person with malice
3 aforethought either express or implied commits murder.
4 2. “Person”, when referring to the victim of a murder,
5 means an individual human being, without regard to age of
6 development, from the moment of conception, when a zygote is
7 formed, until natural death.
8 3. Murder includes killing another person through any
9 means that terminates the life of the other person including
10 but not limited to the use of abortion-inducing drugs. For
11 the purposes of this section, “abortion-inducing drug” means a
12 medicine, drug, or any other substance prescribed or dispensed
13 with the intent of terminating the clinically diagnosable
14 pregnancy of a woman, with knowledge that the drug will
15 with reasonable likelihood cause the termination of the
16 pregnancy. “Abortion-inducing drug” includes the off-label
17 use of drugs known to have abortion-inducing properties,
18 which are prescribed specifically with the intent of causing
19 an abortion, but does not include drugs that may be known to
20 cause an abortion, but which are prescribed for other medical
21 indications.
22 4. Murder does not include a fetal death as defined in
23 section 144.1 or the spontaneous termination of pregnancy as
24 defined in section 144.29A.
25 Sec. 9. REPEAL. Sections 232.5, 702.20, 707.7, 707.8,
26 707.8A, 707.9, and 707.10, Code 2013, are repealed.
27 Sec. 10. REPEAL. Chapters 135L and 146, Code 2013, are
28 repealed.
29 Sec. 11. SEVERABILITY. If any provision of this Act or
30 the application of this Act to any person or circumstances is
31 held invalid, the invalidity shall not affect other provisions
32 or applications of the Act which can be given effect without
33 the invalid provisions or application and, to this end, the
34 provisions of this Act are severable.
35 Sec. 12. EFFECTIVE UPON ENACTMENT. This Act, being deemed
-5-
LSB 1246YH
1 of immediate importance, takes effect upon enactment.
2 EXPLANATION
3 This bill defines “person” in the context of the victim of
4 the crime of murder to be an individual human being without
5 regard to age of development, from the moment of conception,
6 when the zygote is formed, until natural death.
7 The bill provides that murder includes killing another
8 person through any means that terminates the life of
9 the other person including but not limited to the use of
10 abortion-inducing drugs, and defines “abortion-inducing drug”.
11 The bill also provides that murder does not include a fetal
12 death as defined in Code section 144.1 or the spontaneous
13 termination of pregnancy as defined in Code section 144.29A.
14 The bill makes conforming changes throughout the Code to
15 eliminate any reference to allowing abortions or terminations
16 of pregnancy in keeping with the definition of “murder” under
17 the bill.
18 The bill amends the termination of pregnancy reporting
19 section (Code section 144.29A) to only include the reporting of
20 spontaneous terminations of pregnancy.
21 The bill amends a Code section relating to unfair employment
22 practices (Code section 216.6) to eliminate references to
23 disabilities caused or contributed to by legal abortion.
24 The bill amends a Code section relating to discrimination
25 relating to health insurance abortion coverage (Code section
26 216.13) to eliminate the reference to abortion coverage.
27 The bill strikes and repeals Code provisions that relate
28 to allowing abortions under certain circumstances. The bill
29 repeals Code section 232.5 (abortion performed on a minor —--
30 waiver of notification proceedings), Code section 702.20 (the
31 definition of “viability”), Code section 707.7 (feticide),
32 Code section 707.8 (nonconsensual termination —— serious
33 injury to a human pregnancy), Code section 707.8A (partial
34 birth abortion), Code section 707.9 (murder of a fetus aborted
35 alive), Code section 707.10 (duty to preserve the life of the
1 fetus), Code chapter 135L (notification requirements regarding
2 pregnant minors), and Code chapter 146 (abortions —— refusal
3 to perform). The bill also makes conforming changes to strike
4 references to Code provisions stricken or repealed in the bill.
5 The bill provides for severability of any provision
6 or application of the bill that is held invalid from the
7 provisions or applications of the bill which can be given
8 effect without the invalid provisions or application. The bill
9 takes effect upon enactment.
Reuters Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) - A divided federal appeals court has temporarily barred the U.S. government from requiring an Illinois company to obtain insurance coverage for contraceptives, as mandated under the 2010 healthcare overhaul, after the owners objected on religious grounds. More than 40 lawsuits are challenging a requirement in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that requires most for-profit companies to offer workers insurance coverage for contraceptive drugs and devices and other birth control methods. Friday's 2-1 order by a panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago in favor of Cyril and Jane Korte was the second by a federal appeals court to temporarily halt enforcement against people who said it violated their faith, said Edward White, a lawyer for the Roman Catholic couple. The 7th Circuit suggested that the couple's legal challenge might eventually prevail. Its order came two days after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor declined to block the provision's enforcement against companies controlled by the family of Oklahoma City billionaire David Green. The U.S. Department of Justice, which had defended the contraceptives provision, did not immediately respond on Saturday to a request for comment. The Kortes, who own the construction firm Korte & Luitjohan Contractors, had sought to drop a health insurance plan for 20 non-unionized workers that included coverage for contraception, and substitute a different plan consistent with their faith. Read this story at reuters.com ...
 “We must obey God rather than men!”—Acts 5:29
Now that Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has denied Hobby Lobby’s application for an emergency injunction protecting them from Obamacare’s HHS Mandate on abortion and birth control, Hobby Lobby has decided to defy the federal government to remain true to their religious beliefs, at enormous risk and financial cost.
Hobby Lobby is wholly owned and controlled by the Green family, who are evangelical Christians. The Greens are committed to running their business in accordance with their Christian faith, believing that God wants them to conduct their professional business in accordance with the family’s understanding of the Bible. Hobby Lobby’s mission statement includes, “Honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company … consistent with Biblical principles.”
The HHS Mandate goes into effect for Hobby Lobby on Jan. 1, 2013. The Greens correctly understand that some of the drugs the HHS Mandate requires them to cover at no cost in their healthcare plans cause abortions.
Today Hobby Lobby announced that they will not comply with this mandate to become complicit in abortion, which the Greens believe ends an innocent human life. Given Hobby Lobby’s size (it has 572 stores employing more than 13,000 people), by violating the HHS Mandate, it will be subject to over $1.3 million in fines per day. That means over $40 million in fines in January alone. If their case takes another ten months to get before the Supreme Court—which would be the earliest it could get there under the normal order of business—the company would incur almost a half-billion dollars in fines. And then of course the Supreme Court would have to write an opinion in what would likely be a split decision with dissenters, which could easily take four or six months and include hundreds of millions of dollars in additional penalties.
This is civil disobedience, consistent with America’s highest traditions when moral issues are at stake. The Greens are a law-abiding family. They have no desire to defy their own government. But as the Founders launched the American Revolution because they believed the British government was violating their rights, the Greens believe that President Barack Obama and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are commanding the Greens to sin against God, and that no government has the lawful authority to do so.
The Christian tradition of defying government commands to do something wrong goes back to the very birth of Christianity. When the apostles were ordered not to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with anyone, the Book of Acts records: “Peter and the other apostles replied: ‘We must obey God rather than men! The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.’”
Eleven of the twelve apostles—including Peter—would lose their lives for the sake of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ; only the apostle John died of old age. They were determined to obey God’s will at all costs.
This issue of civil disobedience is never to be undertaken lightly. The Bible teaches Christians to submit to all legitimate governmental authority (e.g., Romans 13:1), and so a person can only disobey the government when there is no other way to obey God.
But here in America, the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land, and in its First Amendment it protects against a government establishment of an official religion and separately protects the free exercise of religion. On top of that, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) to specifically add an additional layer of protection against government actions that violate a person’s religious beliefs.
The HHS Mandate is a gross violation of the religious beliefs of the Green family. The issue before the courts here is whether the Greens religious-liberty rights include running their secular, for-profit business consistent with their religious beliefs. In other words, is religious liberty just what you do in church on a Sunday morning, or does it include what you do during the week at your job?
The Greens are now putting their fortunes on the line to do what they believe is right. The courts should side with them, affirming a broad scope of religious liberty under the Constitution and RFRA. And the Supreme Court should resolve this matter with dispatch in their favor.
Millions of Christians across the country feel exactly the same way as the Greens. The Obama administration has issued a statist command that is a declaration of war on people of faith who object to abortion, and civil disobedience could break out all over the country unless the courts set this matter right—and quickly.
Associated Press WASHINGTON – An attorney for Hobby Lobby Stores said Thursday that the arts and crafts chain plans to defy a federal mandate requiring it to offer employees health coverage that includes access to the morning-after pill, despite risking potential fines of up to $1.3 million per day. Hobby Lobby and religious book-seller Mardel Inc., which are owned by the same conservative Christian family, are suing to block part of the federal health care law that requires employee health-care plans to provide insurance coverage for the morning-after pill and similar emergency contraception pills. The companies claim the mandate violates the religious beliefs of their owners. They say the morning-after pill is tantamount to abortion because it can prevent a fertilized egg from becoming implanted in a woman's womb. Read more here ...[Editor's note: There is no such thing as a "fertilized egg." Once an egg is fertilized it is no longer an egg. It is a human being. It is a nascent human person who is being blocked from implantation, and therefore sustenance, by these drugs. It's the moral equivalent of starving your three year-old, or your grandmother, to death.]
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