The U.S. House of Representatives has scheduled an October 3rd vote on H.R. 36, a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks up until the time of birth. The U.S. House passed a similar bill in 2015. During the debate on the bill, Congressman Sean Duffy (R-WI) gave one of the most impassioned speeches for protecting the lives of innocent pre-born children.

“This is not a debate about abortion or even non-abortion, pro-life or pro-abortion,” Duffy said. “Those who are even pro-abortion agree that these tactics are unacceptable. They have no place in our society, and that federal tax dollars should actually go to fund an institution that harvests baby body parts for sale is absolutely asinine.”

“What do we stand for in this institution if we do not stand-up for the most defenseless and voiceless among us?” concluded Duffy.

According to Lifenews:

During the hearing on the last bill, former abortion practitioner Anthony Levatino told members of the committee the gruesome details of his former abortion practice and how he became pro-life following the tragic automobile accident of his child.

Another bombshell dropped during the hearing came from Dr. Maureen Condic, who is Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She testified that the unborn child is capable of reacting to pain as early as 8-10 weeks. This is when most abortions in America take place.

Sadly, when it was brought to a vote in the Senate (where the Democrats then held a majority) it was defeated via filibuster.

U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy hosted a press conference yesterday providing details of when the House will vote on the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (H.R. 36). McCarthy was joined by pro life U.S. Representatives Diane Black (TN-06), Trent Franks (AZ-08), Vicky Hartzler (MO-04), and and other pro-life leaders such as Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser.

The family of Micah Pickering was also present at the press conference, according to Lifenews. Micah Pickering is a miracle baby who survived after being born prematurely at 20 weeks. Today, Micah is a happy, healthy five year old.

SBA List Marjorie Dannenfelser stated the faces like Micah help bring this issue to life in many people’s minds.

“Micah really is the real face of this issue,” she urged. “Because it’s really easy to talk about it, the abortion issue, in abstract theoretical terms. But when you really have come across … and see a young man running around full of energy and love, you realize this is not any other political issue.”

U.S. Representative Trent Franks made similar references to Micah, according to Lifenews. “When Micah stands there,” he said, “you can’t ignore him. He’s as real as it gets.”

In a post press conference interview with MRC Culture Associate Culture Editor, Katie Yoder, Representative Franks also stated:

“I understand that mothers are in a great challenge in these circumstances and my heart is so deeply with them, but there’s nothing liberating about taking the life of a child. It doesn’t liberate the mother. It only puts her in a deeper heartache in the long run.

I’m convinced that if America will look at this as it is, and say ‘Okay, what’s the real question here? Does this thing kill a baby or not?’ If it doesn’t, then okay, it’s no big deal,” he concluded. “But if it really does kill a little helpless human baby, and it’s done that 60 million times now, isn’t it about time we changed direction?”

Representative Franks introduced the legislation back in January, and also proposed legislation in July in an effort to try to save the now deceased Charlie Gard.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your U.S. Representatives to ask him/her to support H.R. 36, the 20-week abortion ban, also known as the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.”  The U.S. House is scheduled to vote on the bill on Tuesday, October 3rd.

It is inexcusable, in the light the pain these babies feel and the broad public support for such bans, that such a federal ban does not already exist.

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On July 27, 2017 a judge made the final decision in the case of Charlie Gard, ordering that the infant be moved to hospice for his last days on this earth. Charlie was one of 16 known children in the world to have mitochondrial depletion syndrome. This condition is a very rare terminal illness  which causes progressive muscle weakness and brain damage.

This decision followed the determination of the hospital that he would be better off dead. The European Court of Human Rights backed this decision. According to BBC News the court determined that further treatment would “continue to cause Charlie significant harm:”

European Court judges have now concluded it was most likely Charlie was “being exposed to continued pain, suffering and distress” and undergoing experimental treatment with “no prospects of success… would offer no benefit”.

They said the application presented by the parents was “inadmissible” and said the court’s decision was “final.”

The legal battle to protect the life of little Charlie Gard began on March 3, 2017 when a Justice from the Family Division of the High Court in London held a hearing to analyze Charlie’s case. On April 11, Justice Francis subsequently decided that the hospital could stop Charlie’s life support. On May 3, Charlie’s parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, appealed the decision of Justice Francis but the appeal was analyzed on May 23 and dismissed on May 25. On June 8, the parent’s appeal at the Supreme Court also failed. The family’s lawyers then appealed the case to the European Court of Human Rights on June 20. That Court refused to stop Charlie’s death at the hands of socialized medicine, despite the fact that Charlie’s parents had raised millions of dollars for experimental treatment in the United States. Multiple hospitals, including a Vatican hospital offered to take in Charlie but a High Court ruled against Charlie leaving the Great Ormond Street Hospital, instead saying he should be “allowed to die with dignity.”

“We are utterly heartbroken,” Charlie’s parents said in a June 29 Facebook post the day before Charlie was to die, “spending our last precious hours with our baby boy. We’re not allowed to choose if our son lives and we’re not allowed to choose when or where Charlie dies. We and most importantly Charlie have been massively let down throughout this whole process. Charlie will die tomorrow knowing that he was loved by thousands… thank you to everyone for all your support.”

According to CNN:

Under British law, parental responsibility includes the right to give consent for medical treatment, according to the British Medical Association.

However, parental rights are not absolute, and in cases in which doctors and parents disagree, the courts may exercise objective judgment in a child’s best interest.

Anytime government can usurp parental rights, it is a slippery slope, but this especially rings true when a life is at stake. Even though Charlie Gard’s case was certainly a life-threatening condition, his parents still had hope that the experimental treatment offered in the United States would have helped alleviate Charlie’s suffering and give Charlie a legitimate chance at life. Sadly, Charlie was not given that chance. According to WND, in response “a team of experts on parental rights, and related child rights, is asking President Trump to get the United States out of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child:”

The group’s letter to the White House said, “The Charlie Gard situation highlights the stark difference between our national values and those of internationalists who believe that government bureaucrats and the courts should decide how children should be raised, and even whether a life is worth living.”

The HSLDA notes that the Clinton administration signed the convention, but it never was ratified by the Senate.

HSLDA’s William Estrada explained, “When courts and medical authorities in England can overrule parents’ wishes and declare it is in the best interest of a child to let him die, it’s time to redouble efforts to protect parental rights here in America.”

The letter written to Trump by HSLDA rightfully states the belief “that life is precious and that parents, not the government, know best how to protect and care for their children.”

The United States has been the leader of the free world on the issue of human rights, and this must continue. With the case of Charlie Gard, critical time was wasted in legal battles when Charlie was left languishing to die in the Great Ormond Street Hospital If the United States ever ratifies the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, cases like Charlie’s would easily begin taking place in the United States.

“We just want some peace with our son – no hospital, no lawyers, no courts, no media, just quality time with Charlie –away from everything to say goodbye to him in the most loving way,” Yates expressed on Thursday, according to a CNN report posted by Fox 8. “Mummy and Daddy love you so much, Charlie, we always have and we always will and we are so sorry that we couldn’t save you. We had the chance, but we weren’t allowed to give you that chance. Sweet dreams, baby. Sleep tight, our beautiful little boy.”

As Washington D.C. lawmakers wrangle about the details of the so-called “ObamaCare repeal,” “progressive” politicians and activists are ramping up their rhetoric. Setting aside the fact that the repeal effort has turned into an effort merely to reform government healthcare and the fact that Congressional leaders are seemingly unwilling to undo the legislation that mandated socialized medicine, I think it is important to once again address the Left’s dogmatic narrative that asserts that health care is a human right.

In 2010, I described the idea that health care is a human right as socialistic propaganda:

The implicit claim in the assertion that health care is a “right” is that it is a constitutionally protected right. All experts agree that health care is neither a constitutional nor a legal right. In America we understand that our rights to the free exercise of religion, to speak freely, to bear arms and to be secure from unwarranted search and seizure come from God.

To see the difference in government-mandated health care and real rights, look at how they are exercised. Historically, American citizens have been free to exercise their real, constitutionally protected rights or not as they see fit. The government does not compel citizens to attend church in the name of religious freedom. The government does not compel citizens to own a gun in the name of the Second Amendment. And the government does not force citizens to engage in the political process in the name of free speech. In contrast, our radically “progressive” friends are eager to compel every American using the heavy hand of government to exercise their so-called right to health care. Should we celebrate the passage of a bill that in the service of non-existent rights actually diminishes our liberty?

What is really at issue is not whether health care is a “right” but whether citizens have a right to taxpayer-funded health care. What other cherished American “right” has ever required that we diminish another’s liberty? Does the right to free speech require newspaper owners to print every op-ed and editorial? Does the right to bear arms require the government to arm its citizenry? Does the freedom of religion require government-funding of churches, mosques and synagogues? Why then, does this “right” to healthcare require the government to take from some to give to others? When in the history of our country have we had to secure a right by trampling on the liberties of others?

Make no mistake, that is exactly what is happening with this government takeover of the healthcare industry. This new health care “right” will be forced on every American, and it will be made possible by taking from citizens “according to their ability” and giving to others “according to their needs” (Karl Marx, 1875).

We only have to look to the U.K. and the sad case of Charlie Gard to see what government-controlled health care looks like. If the bureaucratic “experts” deem you unworthy of medical treatment, they can slam the door on any options you may want to pursue. We might as well put a fork  in any semblance of liberty when it comes to parental rights, conscience rights and free will. The tyrannical government decides.

ObamaCare forced many American citizens into a socialized health care system and forced states into an enormous expansion of Medicaid. According to the Chicago Tribune, approximately 650,000 Illinoisans were added to the Medicaid rolls over the past few years. Crain’s Chicago Business claims that this “expansion has caused skyrocketing enrollment, massive cost overruns and siphoned away incredibly limited resources from those who truly have no way to help themselves.” The article points out that this expansion has cost Illinois taxpayers “more than $9.2 billion—more than double what was projected.” It is part of the reason state lawmakers voted for massive tax hikes earlier this month.

Sadly, the costs of ObamaCare have been much higher than the so-called “experts” projected, and the Republican version of socialized medicine may not prove to be much better. More important, while the financial costs to taxpayers is considerable, the damage to personal liberty is incalculable.

Take ACTION:   Send an email or a fax to your U.S. Representative now by clicking HERE. Urge your U.S. Representative to follow through on the promises to repeal Obamacare and the individual federal mandate.  While you are at it, remind them to permanently defund Planned Parenthood.

Read more:

Fearmongering Over Medicaid Ignores Just How Bad the Program Is

Ted Cruz wrestling with ObamaCare … Is he winning?

Obamacare Is Causing Insurers To Delay Surgeries Patients Need

The Uninspiring Medicaid Debate

The GOP’s Health-Care Messaging Needs Serious Work

Why is Healthcare So Expensive?

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In a fluid and volatile story, the London hospital that has been caring for 11-month-old British baby Charlie Gard decided last Friday to reconsider its decision to remove his ventilator while it reviews “new evidence” about the possible effects of an experimental treatment available in the United States. As of this writing, little Charlie is alive. How long he remains alive is yet in the hands—not of his parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, who are suffering with him—but in the hands of British doctors aided and abetted by judges who neither love nor suffer with Charlie as his parents do.

As people throughout the world now know, little Charlie was born with a rare genetic disease the symptoms of which first manifested a month after he was born. Charlie is now blind and deaf. He cannot breathe or move on his own. He has permanent brain damage and suffers from seizures.

Charlie has one of the rarest and most severe types of mitochondrial disease: mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. Though his disease is incurable, there has been hope over the past 10 months that an experimental treatment called “nucleoside bypass therapy” could alleviate some symptoms and extend his life.

With this sliver of hope, his parents set up a crowd-funding page in January of 2017 that has now raised $1.7 million. Many, perhaps most, medical experts believe that Charlie’s condition has so deteriorated that whatever possibility there may have been for the experimental treatment to work no longer exists. Julian Savulescu, philosopher and bioethicist at the University of Oxford, explained that “Charlie Gard should have been allowed to go to the US for experimental treatment back in April (or better January when it was first considered), not because he would have been cured but just because we couldn’t then be confident his life would have been ‘intolerable’, or not worth living.”

Charlie’s parents have fought a tenacious battle first with the hospital and then in the courts for the right to take Charlie to America at no cost to either the hospital or the British people. Charlie’s parents have lost at every turn. The courts decided that Charlie’s parents will have no role in Charlie’s health care decisions. They have no right even to take Charlie home to die.

One of the attorney’s arguing for the hospital cited an earlier case in which a judge declared that a child’s ventilator could be removed against his mother’s wishes:

[E]ven if his life were completely pain-free, I would come to the conclusion that there is no measurable benefit to him to continue in his present condition and it is simply inhumane to permit it to continue.

Not only did the court’s decision to prohibit Charlie’s parents from taking him to America have nothing to do with limited public resources, but, as revealed in this statement, it also had nothing to do with an assessment of Charlie’s physical pain. The court’s decision was based on the assessment of judges about what constitutes a life worth living.

The Independent quotes an unnamed medical expert who shares how weighty and painful a decision it is for medical staff to unplug terminally ill children: “When a decision to withdraw life support is made for a baby this is not taken lightly and there are often tears in the medical and nursing staff looking after such a baby.”

As the mother of a critical care nurse, I don’t doubt the truth of that statement. But neither the seriousness with which medical staff take such a moment, nor the grief they feel justifies the usurpation of Charlie’s parents’ right to use their own funds to try to improve or extend the life of their child. And no amount of tears from medical staff can possibly equal the tears Charlie’s family has and will shed. What this hospital has done is increase the suffering of Charlie’s parents.

The potential efficacy of the experimental treatment to alleviate Charlie’s symptoms or prolong his life is not the central ethical issue in this heartrending story. The central issue is who gets to decide what treatments Charlie will receive. That Charlie’s inarguably loving and devoted parents have had their rights usurped by the British government should warn all people who enjoy freedom that oppressive, tyrannical governments take many forms.

Ruth Graham writing for “progressive” Slate Magazine frets that cuts to government funding of health care, including Medicaid, make deaths like Charlie’s more likely. Many others fear that nationalized health care poses greater risks. No government can afford to provide all medical treatments—conventional and experimental—to all people. Even in countries with socialized medicine, there are limited resources.

What Charlie’s terrible plight illuminates is how profoundly intrusive, presumptuous, and proprietary the government becomes when health care is nationalized. The British government is not merely deciding which treatments British hospitals will provide, but what treatments British citizens can pursue for their own children at their own expense.

Charlie’s parents are not asking for British doctors or hospitals to treat Charlie. They’re not asking for government funds. Charlie’s parents have the resources to fund his treatment, and yet they are unable to do so because Big Brother has in effect kidnapped little Charlie to whom Big Brother has no relation. Charlie, who was knitted together in his mother’s womb, is now owned by the state.

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This picture (above) is hard for me to look at. I’ve got a one-year-old girl – and I cannot imagine what I would do if she had a life threatening illness, and the government told me I couldn’t do everything possible to save her.

If you haven’t seen this story, the picture above is of Charlie Gard. Charlie and his parents live in the UK, and he has a form of mitochondrial disease, a genetic condition that causes progressive muscle weakness and brain damage.

Charlie’s chances of surviving this disease are slim. However there is a treatment option available for him in the United States. It’s expensive, but his parents raised the money for it. The only problem is the hospital and the British government decided that because the odds of success are low, they will not allow the family to bring him to the U.S. for treatment.

This story could not be more relevant for America as we debate healthcare policy. We can discuss Medicaid expansion and abortion funding under Obamacare – both crucially important topics.

But as this story shows, more government control of healthcare means less freedom for you and me. The state replaces the rights of parents. And sick people are treated like numbers on paper, instead of patients with God-given rights.

So yes it’s true, the stats and experts say Charlie’s odds of survival are so low that it’s not practical to give him any more chance at life. But if that were my little girl or yours, would you want the government making that decision for you?