FROM AUL

CONGRESS IS LISTENING: SPEAK OUT FOR LIFE

This week, AUL invites all who care about defending life to make their voice heard on Capitol Hill by contacting the House GOP website America Speaking Out. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) instituted the site to give voters an easy and direct way to help set a “new American agenda.”


As the government begins to implement the new health care reform law--which, as it stands, would effectively insert the federal government into the abortion business--it is more important than ever before that Congress prevent taxpayer money from funding the destruction of unborn life. By making the Hyde Amendment permanent, through the bipartisan bill introduced by Reps. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.), Congress can block the use of tax dollars for abortion procedures. Click here to join pro-lifers across the country in telling Congress, via America Speaking Out, that enshrining the Hyde Amendment in law should be at the top of legislators’ priorities.

On The Docket
Judge Halts White House’s Embryo-Destructive Stem Cell Policy

Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth issued a preliminary injunction against the Obama Administration’s illegal and unethical policy of funding research that entails the destruction of human embryos. The policy is being challenged on the grounds that it violates the 1996 Dickey-Wicker Amendment, which bans federal funding for research in which human embryos “are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.”

AUL President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest called the decision by the Department of Justice “not surprising, but not the biggest story here.”

“Adult stem cell research has yielded incredible, life-giving results for people with many diseases and disabilities, while the stem cell lines created by destroying unborn children has provided little hope for those suffering,” Yoest noted. “Media reports indicate that more than $100 million in federal funds has been wasted on embryonic stem cell research in the last year alone. With our tax dollars, we should be investing in the adult stem cell research that works now and holds the greatest long-term promise for all Americans."

AUL Staff Counsel Anna Franzonello has more details on this encouraging judicial development at the AUL Blog.

Alaskans Vote to Approve Parental Notification

On Tuesday, Alaska became the 37th state to require parental involvement before abortion. Despite aggressive campaigning by pro-abortion organizations, voters overwhelmingly approved Ballot Measure 2, an initiative sponsored by Alaskans for Parental Rights that required abortionists to notify a parent or guardian before an abortion procedure is performed on a minor.

The battle to protect minors in the state of Alaska has been hard-fought. AUL has been heavily involved in the defense of life throughout the process. In 2004, AUL attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Alaska Supreme Court in support of an earlier parental-consent law that was later struck down. AUL provided information and counsel to allies supporting Ballot Measure 2. Read more about this important pro-life victory at the AUL Blog.