Friday
5
Barry Sheets
Legislative Consultant
July 17, 2020
There may be little happening in Columbus right now due to the summer legislative recess, but there is plenty to pay attention to across the country and world in the fight for protecting life.
Remember, as the Psalmist states: “Put not your trust in princes, nor in men,
for there is no help in him...Blessed is he that has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God...which executes justice for the oppressed; which gives bread to the hungry; the Lord loosens the prisoners”
(Psalms 146: 3, 5, 7).
NEWS AND VIEWS
1. True to form, Judge Steve Jones of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, (appointed by former President Obama), this week
issued
a permanent injunction against the enactment of Georgia’s version
of the Heartbeat law.
This is no surprise, and actually isn’t a setback in a larger sense to Ohio’s efforts to successfully navigate our own Heartbeat law through the federal courts. The Georgia
legislation
, HB 481 (the Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act), is filled with exceptions, allowing abortions to continue for rape, incest and fetal anomaly cases, unlike the Ohio law. We as a pro-life movement need to be very careful about supporting legislation that looks good on the surface, but the Devil is in the details. If this is “fairness and equality” for the unborn, I would hate to see what “unfairness and inequality” would look like!
2. And yet another federal judicial appointee by former President Obama shows why he was appointed:
Judge Theodore Chaung, sitting on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland,
ruled
on Monday that women seeking to receive abortion drugs (chemical abortions using mifepristone) while the COVID-19 health emergency is active, are not required to undergo an in-person visit (examination) with a medical provider, which overrides existing FDA safety rules and basically opens wide the ability to do abortions completely through telemedicine. Ten states’ attorneys general
filed to intervene
in the suit as it would impact how they regulate chemical abortions. Sadly, Ohio wasn’t one of the states attempting to intervene. Perhaps folks should ask
Governor Mike DeWine
and
Attorney General Dave Yost
why that was the case.
3. With the mad rush to make abortions quicker and more frequent or to excuse them by finding “exceptions”
leading to a global fertility decline with more women choosing either to not have children or being more likely to abort pregnancies, is it any wonder that we are now facing, according to a
new study
from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the likelihood of populations being reduced by up to half by the turn of the 22
nd
Century? Margaret Sanger must be doing back-flips in Hell right now at this news, as it was her goal to eradicate “undesirable” races through abortion and eugenics.
4. Planned Parenthood (PP) is once again facing scrutiny and criticism, specifically for focusing more on politics rather than on providing services.
In a blistering article in the
Guardian
, a former PP employee lays bare the abortion-on-demand movement is crumbling, and lays the blame at PP’s obsessive focus on “hobnobbing with the powerful, paying the CEOs of its regional chapters salaries in the mid-six figures, making symbolic gestures and coming up with a catchy slogan to sell on T-shirts.”
Guess it’s really not about “health care” after all!
5. The millennial generation that is upset with Planned Parenthood may not be as upset with the hyper-focus on politics if PP is successful in helping Joe Biden win the White House
.
In a new book out this week, author Joel Pollack
shows
that such actions by PP and others have helped to move Biden over to a
full abortion on demand position, even though he claims to be a practicing Catholic.
Biden stated his position
:
“I would send immediately to the desk
of the United States Congress when I’m elected president – if I’m elected president – a codification of Roe v Wade, amended by Casey, because I think
it is a woman’s right to choose. I think it’s a woman’s opportunity to be able
to make that decision. And in fact, I’ve gotten 100% rating from NARAL as well.”
The article notes he is creating a “unity plan” with Bernie Sanders, which “sounds like a page right out of Planned Parenthood’s political agenda”. It’s really up to Pro-Life advocates, Catholic and Protestant, to make sure that page, and the book on Biden, is closed permanently!
PROFILE
Each installment of the Friday Five will bring thumbnail profiles
of key policymakers and committees.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit—Judge Helene White.
White, born in New York City, graduated with an A.B. Degree in Economics from Columbia University in 1975 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1978. She clerked two years for Michigan Supreme Court Justice Charles Levin, whom she would later marry and ultimately divorce.
Judge Helen White, confirmed to the Sixth Circuit in 2008, was former President George W. Bush’s last nominee to the Circuit during his presidency, but White was not nominated by Bush by choice. Her confirmation may be one of the more controversial ones in modern history. On January 7, 1997, President Bill Clinton nominated White to a vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. With the United States Senate controlled by Republicans during Clinton's entire second term, White's nomination languished for more than four years, chiefly because of objections from Michigan's Republican Senator Spencer Abraham. Ultimately, White's nomination was returned to the White House when Clinton's presidency ended. White's four year nomination remains one of the single longest federal appeals-court judicial nominations never given a full Senate vote.
When Bush took office in 2001, he submitted Republican nominees to fill the two Michigan vacancies that Abraham had refused to allow Clinton to fill. Michigan's two Democratic senators, Carl Levin, who was the cousin of White's husband at the time, and Debbie Stabenow, who had defeated Abraham in the 2000 election, consistently tried to block all of Bush's circuit court nominees from Michigan, citing that White had never received an up-or-down vote from the Senate during Clinton's presidency. On April 15, 2008, as part of a deal with Levin and Stabenow, Bush re-nominated White to the Sixth Circuit, more than eleven years after she was first nominated by Clinton. In return for White's nomination, Levin and Stabenow agreed to allow Raymond Kethledge to be confirmed. White is considered to be center-left in her judicial philosophy. In a notable case, White’s opinion was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court (USSC) on a ruling in the
Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC
case, with the USSC upholding the right of a church to determine its hiring and firing decisions without being hit by “discrimination” lawsuits.
Ohio Professional Boards and Commissions
Ohio Counselor, Social Worker and Marriage & Family Therapist Board
—The CSWMFT Board, created by law in 1984, has the responsibility to protect the citizens of the State of Ohio through the licensure of Counselors and Social Workers. The Board does this through the establishment of licensure and practice standards for the professional practice of counseling and social work. The board consists of 15 members from various disciplines, appointed by the Governor. The Board utilizes an Investigative Unit to review complaints against licensees. The majority of the complaints received by the Board are with regard to client care but the Board also investigates supervision issues, licensee impairment concerns, and continuing education audit issues. The Board issues an annual report to the Governor. During FY17, the board issued over 4000 new licenses.
The Executive Director of the CSWMFT Board is Brian Carnahan, who has held the position since 2014. Carnahan holds an MBA from Franklin University and an MA in Geography from Kent State University. He completed undergraduate studies in geography and political science at The Ohio State University. Carnahan has served on the Association of Social Work Boards bylaws committee and is currently actively involved with other industry association committees.
