Friday 5
Barry Sheets
Legislative Consultant
January 24, 2020
The Cause of Life received a significant boost this week in Washington, DC.
Is Ohio in position to capitalize on this positioning?
Pray for 2020 to be The Year of the Unborn Child, a year that will see them
be protected from conception forward by our laws.
NEWS AND VIEWS
1. In a historical move, President Donald J. Trump, will accomplish something no other president has ever done: on Friday, he will participate in and speak before the March for Life in Washington D.C.
Last year, Vice President Pence gave remarks. This year, the Chief Executive, who just
declared January 22, 2020, to be National Sanctity of Human Life Day
by Presidential Proclamation, shared his administration's goal of Defending the Right to Life:
"Today, I call on the Congress to join me in protecting and defending the dignity of every human life, including those not yet born. I call on the American people to continue to care for women in unexpected pregnancies and to support adoption and foster care in a more meaningful way, so every child can have a loving home."
2. One of the initiatives that President Trump wants Congress to complete and send to his desk is the Pain Capable Abortion Ban Act.
In providential timing, a ne
w
study
has been released showing conclusions that the unborn child can feel pain potentially as early as 12 weeks gestation. Utilizing neuroscience, the researchers writing in the BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics agree that the potential for the unborn child to feel pain before 24 weeks gestation cannot be ruled out, and that morally, the pain does not have to be consistent with adult pain levels in order to create a moral and ethical need to prevent the pain in the pre-born. Perhaps this might spur Congress to step up and get this legislation across the finish line this year.
3. In a classic Romans 1 case of thinking turned upside down
,
an international human rights organization has come out and
declared
that abortion, the taking away of the right to life of the human person in their earliest stages, is a "fundamental right "of "anyone who wants or needs it."
Speaking before the U.S. Commission on Unalienable Rights, Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch, exemplified the inhumanity of the abortion-on-demand movement by stating that abortion "saves" lives, especially of women who seek them out if policies prohibit them in their country. Using this specious argument as a basis of policy making, there would be no law that could stand against drug abuse, assisted suicide, or other prohibited acts that a person "wants or needs." Roth also claimed international law (especially dictates from the United Nations) trumps a sovereign nation's ability to prohibit abortion.
4. It is reassuring the Trump administration doesn't believe in handing over American sovereignty to any international body
, as the President just expressed in his
comments
to the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland this week:
"A nation's highest duty is to its own citizens...Only when governments put their own citizens first will people be fully invested in their national futures. In the United States, we are building an economy that works for everyone, restoring the bonds of love and loyalty that unite citizens and powers nations."
He also went on to note
"We're also restoring the constitutional rule of law in America, which is essential to our economy, our liberty, and our future."
Given the Administration's focus on protecting unborn life (our youngest American citizens) and the recent announcement that the Trump Justice Department is weighing in with briefs supporting Ohio's Down Syndrome Abortion Ban law that is up for review by the full Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals soon, this should make Pro-Life Americans very optimistic about the future!
5. Another stunning example of callousness toward life has been exposed in a recent medical journal
article
.
A research study run out of a New Jersey genomics company paid Mexican women to be artificially inseminated, and then either have the eggs extracted for IVF research or to have an abortion. Cooper Genomics researchers would use the IVF created lives and the aborted (lavaged) embryos to compare. The goal? Lead researcher Santiago Munne states: "This is the first time that human embryos conceived naturally have been analyzed genetically to see if they are normal or not." If the embryonic child showed markers for such maladies as cystic fibrosis, etc., they were destroyed. This company's research seems geared toward making "designer babies" without genetic issues and would make the U.S apologize to Iceland as we have criticized them for their "zero Down's Syndrome births" claims. This company, Cooper Genomics, should be investigated for crimes, not lauded in medical journals.
PROFILES
Each installment of the Friday Five will bring thumbnail profiles of
key policymakers and committees.
United States Supreme Court-Brett Kavanaugh, Associate Justice
. Justice Kavanaugh, the most recent addition to the nation's highest court, earned a B.A. from Yale College in 1987 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1990. He served as a law clerk from 1990-1993 to U.S, Circuit and Supreme Court justices. In 1992-1993, he was an attorney in the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States. From 1994 to 1997 and for a period in 1998, he was Associate Counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel. He was a partner at a Washington, D.C., law firm from 1997 to 1998 and again from 1999 to 2001. From 2001 to 2003 he was Associate Counsel and then Senior Associate Counsel and Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary from 2003 to 2006 for President George W. Bush. Kavanaugh was appointed a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2006. President Donald J. Trump nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and after a protracted and contentious nomination hearing process, he took his seat on October 6, 2018. Kavanaugh has shown a propensity to be an originalist in relation to his Constitutional interpretation in rulings.
U.S. Congress-Marcia Fudge, 11th District.
The six-term Democrat Congresswoman from Cleveland has been in this seat since 2008. According to GovTrack, Fudge is the least bipartisan of the Ohio delegation and is the most liberal member of the Ohio Congressional Representatives. In her 12 years in Congress, Fudge has succeeded in getting none of her bills signed into law. She has high ratings from liberal special interest groups such as Planned Parenthood Action Fund-100%; Human Rights Campaign-88% and ACLU-85%. She sits on the following committees: House Committee on Agriculture, where she chairs the Nutrition, Oversight, and Department Operations subcommittee, as well as on the Conservation and Forestry Subcommittees. She is also on the House Committee on House Administration, where she chairs the Elections subcommittee, the House Committee on Education and Labor and on its Civil Rights and Human Services, Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions subcommittees. Fudge is eligible and running for re-election to the seat in 2020.
Ohio State Board of Education District 8-John P. Hagan
. John P. Hagan is one of the newest members of the Board, elected in 2018, but is a veteran policymaker. John was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives for eight years, four years of that time serving as chairman of the House Public Utilities Committee. Hagan attended Kent State University School of Architecture before succeeding his father in their family plumbing and heating business. He has been a member of several community service organizations and served as a Marlboro Township (Stark County) trustee. Hagan serves as the chairman of the Board's Assessment and Accountability Committee, which focuses on policy decisions and rules related to Ohio's assessment and accountability system including report card, career technical education report card, dropout recovery, 22+ performance, and state assessment performance level setting. Hagan is eligible for re-election in 2022.
Ohio House Finance Committee and Subcommittees-
the committee where the spending starts. By the Constitution, all appropriation measures (the state budget especially) must begin in the House, and primarily in this committee. The committee has 33 members, one-third of the entire chamber, comprised of 21 Republicans and 12 Democrats. The Chairman is Rep. Scott Oelslager of Canton. The committee has heard dozens of bills this session, as any bill that appropriates state money must either start in this committee or be assigned to this committee after passing another subject matter committee before being referred for a full House vote. In order to handle the load, the committee has five subcommittees: Agriculture, Development & Natural Resources, Health & Human Services, Higher Education, Primary & Secondary Education, and Transportation. The committee meets on Tuesdays at 9:00 a.m. (may have multiple days of hearings during the week during budget deliberations).
Ohio Senate Higher Education Committee-
the committee that hears bills dealing with Ohio's colleges and universities (that don't include appropriations of state dollars for operation or for capital projects) is comprised of six Republicans and three Democrats and chaired by Senator Stephanie Kunze of Columbus. The committee has only had five bills assigned to it over the last year, so it meets infrequently. When it does convene, it is on Wednesdays at 9:15 a.m.
