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Here’s a Timeline on Pro-Life Act 577 of 2015, The Abortion-Inducing Drugs Safety Act

Jul 31, 2017Jerry CoxAbortionAbortion, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

On Friday afternoon a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court order that had blocked a pro-life law passed in 2015.

The pro-life law is Act 577 of 2015, the Abortion-Inducing Drugs Safety Act.

This good, pro-life law requires abortionists to follow FDA protocols when dispensing abortion-inducing drugs like RU-486; it also requires them to contract with a physician who has admitting privileges at a local hospital–just in case the woman experiences any complications from the abortion.

A lot of people may be surprised to learn the Eighth Circuit is just now weighing in on legislation passed more than two years ago. Here’s a very brief timeline of events from March of 2015 through last Friday:

March 20, 2015: The Arkansas Legislature passed Act 577, the Abortion-Inducing Drugs Safety Act. The law was set to go into effect January 1, 2016.
December 30, 2015: Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, which has two clinics in Arkansas, filed a lawsuit saying it had been unable to find a doctor with admitting privileges at a local hospital to handle emergencies resulting from these chemical abortions, and that Planned Parenthood would no longer may be able to perform drug-induced abortions in Arkansas if Act 577 were enforced.
December 31, 2015: U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker issued a temporary restraining order blocking the law just hours before it was set to go into effect. A few weeks later Judge baker followed up by issuing a preliminary injunction blocking the law from being enforced.
August 28, 2016: Attorney General Leslie Rutledge filed a brief asking the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse Judge Baker’s preliminary injunction against the law.
September 21, 2016: A three-judge panel from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals heard Attorney General Rutledge’s arguments in court.
July 28, 2017: The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals panel overturned Judge Baker’s preliminary injunction and sent the issue back down to her court. The panel noted that the judge failed to estimate the number of women who would be burdened by Act 577 before blocking the law. Among other things, the panel wrote, “In the present case, the district court abused its discretion because it failed to consider whether Planned Parenthood satisfied the requirements necessary to sustain a facial challenge to an abortion regulation.”

Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals Panel Lifts Injunction Against Pro-Life Law

Jul 28, 2017Jerry CoxAbortionAbortion, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, July 28, 2017

On Friday a three-judge panel from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a lower court’s order that had blocked the Abortion-Inducing Drugs Safety Act of 2015.

Family Council President Jerry Cox released a statement, saying, “We are very pleased with this ruling. This good law requires abortion providers to follow FDA protocols when dispensing abortion drugs and to maintain an agreement with a physician who has admitting privileges at a local hospital. A lower court blocked this good law from going into effect last year. Today the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals panel reversed that lower court’s order.

“We look forward to other good court decisions like this one as this case continues.”

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Photo Credit: By Brian Turner (Flickr: My Trusty Gavel) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Scientists in Oregon Kill Human Embryos For “Research”

Jul 27, 2017Jerry CoxEthics, Life, Sanctity of LifeBioethics, Human Cloning, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life, Stem Cell Research

This week the MIT Technology Review reported that scientists in Oregon have become the first in the U.S. to edit the DNA of human embryos.

The MIT Technology Review writes,

The effort, led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov of Oregon Health and Science University, involved changing the DNA of a large number of one-cell embryos with the gene-editing technique CRISPR, according to people familiar with the scientific results.

Until now, American scientists have watched with a combination of awe, envy, and some alarm as scientists elsewhere were first to explore the controversial practice. To date, three previous reports of editing human embryos were all published by scientists in China.

To call this research “controversial” is an understatement. It is unconscionable for two reasons.

First, in order to carry out their research, scientists created human embryos. These human embryos were living human beings–albeit very small, helpless human beings. Researchers in Oregon created these human beings; experimented on them; and then apparently killed them.

Ethically speaking, this is no different from embryonic stem cell research in which human embryos are created and then killed in order to harvest their stem cells for scientific use.

The second reason this research is unconscionable is that it could pave the way for “designer babies” in which embryos are edited to produce certain characteristics. Scientists who support this research say it could one day allow doctors to correct genetic abnormalities in unborn children, but it could also allow parents and doctors to engineer children with certain traits or enhancements.

It’s worth noting this is not the first time these researchers in Oregon have engaged in this type of activity. In 2013 they published research claiming to have cloned and killed human embryos in order to obtain their stem cells.

As we have said many times, human beings are not research material. All scientific research must respect the sanctity of human life. And we should not do anything that might encourage or allow doctors to produce customized “designer children.”