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
The Roe vs Wade Supreme Court and who appointed them:
Blackmun - Nixon, Republican
Powell - Nixon, Republican
Burger - Nixon, Republican
Rehnquist - Nixon, Republican
Brennan - Eisenhower, Republican
Stewart - Eisenhower, Republican
Douglas - Roosevelt, Democrat
White - Kennedy, Democrat
Marshall - Johnson, Democrat
One Democrat, Byron White, and one Republican, William Rehnquist, dissented.
Associated Press By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Mississippi's only abortion clinic says it is scheduled for an April 18 license revocation hearing before the state Department of Health. The Center for Reproductive Rights said Wednesday that the Jackson Women's Health Organization had received notice of the hearing date. Read this story at hosted.ap.org...
Gov. Beebe of Arkansas yesterday vetoed a bill that would have allowed abortions only if it was determined that the baby was less than 20 weeks old. His reason for the veto: the bill “would squarely contradict Supreme Court precedent” by imposing a ban on a woman’s right to choose an elective, non-therapeutic abortion before viability, Beebe said in a statement announcing the veto. “When I was sworn in as governor, I took an oath to preserve, protect and defend both the Arkansas Constitution and the Constitution of the United States. I take that oath seriously,” the governor said. He's right about the bill being unconstitutional, but he's very wrong about why. The bill is unconstitutional because it fails the requirement that all persons must be afforded equal protection under the law. Any law that allows the killing of a baby just because he or she has not yet passed the 20 week gestational date clearly affords unequal protection to persons based on age. The Supreme Court has embraced a legal fiction in voicing opinion that children in the womb are not persons. Read more about the veto, and the prospects for it being overriden, in the top front page story in today's Fort Smith Times Record -- http://swtimes.com/sections/news/politics/beebe-vetoes-abortion-bil...----- Steve Schulin volunteer - Rockville, Maryland http://www.marylandindependentparty.org steve@schulin.net SKYPE: steve.schulin
"These children, over tenfold the number of Americans lost in all our nation's wars, will never laugh, never sing, never experience the joy of human love; nor will they strive to heal the sick, or feed the poor, or make peace among nations. Abortion has denied them the first and most basic of human rights, and we are infinitely poorer for their loss."
-- Ronald Reagan
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to The Republican Citizens of Washington County, Maryland, 1809
 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.
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