Arkansas Pro-Life Leader: Issue 1 Puts a Price Tag on Human Life

Yesterday Arkansas Right to Life Executive Director Rose Mimms published an op-ed at TownHall.com regarding Issue 1 — a proposed constitutional amendment restricting noneconomic damages juries can award in lawsuits — writing,

Issue One would put an arbitrary cap of $500,000 on non-economic and caps punitive damages. In real life this means that if a 40 year old successful business man is killed negligently then his life could be worth millions because you could calculate his current earnings and multiply them out for the future. If a stay at home mom, a child or infant, a retired veteran, an individual with Down Syndrome or other genetic disorder who isn’t employed or a nursing home resident who dies as a result of abuse or someone else’s error or negligence then those lives are all capped at a value never to exceed $500,000. The jury simply can’t award a family more, even if it wanted to do so. Think of your loved ones, would you ever put a price tag on their lives?

Ultimately, Issue One says that some lives are more valuable than others. It says that your life’s value is determined by your what you earn at the time of a tragedy. It says that Arkansans on juries can’t hear the facts and award a family $1 million dollars for the abuse of their child who was left brain damaged or the neglect of their elderly mother in a nursing home. Issue One is one more step in devaluing life in a culture where we simply can’t afford any more slips down that slope.

Family Council Action Committee announced a few weeks ago that it would campaign against Issue 1, because the amendment puts a dollar value on human life.

We have written in the past about the unintended consequences of measures like Issue 1.

Family Council has never opposed responsible lawsuit reforms. As far back as 2003, we did not oppose general malpractice reform measures passed by the legislature. That same year, however, we did oppose a proposal that could have given an unfair advantage to nursing homes over good care for residents.

Some nursing home owners simply don’t want to spend the money necessary to provide quality care. They cut staff, reduce services, compromise care, and let people suffer. Most families have a story about a loved one who was neglected or mistreated in a nursing home. The fear of a lawsuit may be all that keeps some nursing homes in line. Issue 1 removes that threat. If that goes away, our elderly nursing home residents will suffer even more.

You can read  the entire op-ed by Rose Mimms here.

Photo Credit: By MediaPhoto.Org [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

Study Finds Chemical Abortion Can Be Reversed Safely

This week Dr. George Delgado along with six other researchers published a study in the journal Issues in Law and Medicine verifying what many pro-lifers have been saying for years: Chemical abortions can be safely reversed and unborn babies’ lives can be saved.

Doctors performing chemical abortions give the pregnant woman drugs like RU-486 that kill the unborn child. The drugs are administered in two doses. However, some women have second thoughts about abortion after taking the initial abortion drug.

Dr. Delgado’s research demonstrates that after a woman receives the first chemical abortion drug, the abortion can be stopped if the woman soon takes an antidote to the abortion drug.

The study followed 754 women who tried to reverse their chemical abortions. It concluded chemical abortions could be reversed 64% – 68% of the time — with no apparent risk of birth defects.

In 2015 Arkansas passed an informed-consent law requiring abortion clinics to tell women that chemical abortion can be reversed, but that time is of the essence.

At the time, many abortion advocates dismissed the idea of chemical abortion reversal as junk science. This latest research, however, indicates it is a safe, effective way to save lives.

Planned Parenthood Wants a Disney Princess Who’s Had an Abortion

A Pennsylvania branch of Planned Parenthood posted a bizarre tweet this week calling on Disney to create an animated princess who has had an abortion.

The tweet read,

We need a disney princess who’s had an abortion / We need a disney princess who’s pro-choice / We need a disney princess who’s an undocumented immigrant / We need a disney princess who’s actually a union worker / We need a disney princess who’s trans[gender]

Planned Parenthood has since deleted the post, but many people have pointed out that the tweet was incredibly ironic: Who are Disney’s biggest fans? Children. And who kills hundreds of thousands of unborn children every year? Planned Parenthood.

It all reminds me of something John Stonestreet at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview jokingly wrote last December:

Who’s sabotaging Planned Parenthood’s Twitter account? . . . I’ve been saying for a while now that there’s got to be a pro-life mole running Planned Parenthood’s Twitter page. So many tweets and images they post seem to undermine or parody their pro-death position.