Category: Abortion
California’s abortion ‘trauma’ sanctuary: Newsom refuses to extradite accused doctor to ‘pro-life’ Louisiana
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill (R) blasted California officials this week for refusing to extradite a doctor facing abortion charges.
Murrill said that it was “appalling” to see Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) “openly admitting that they will protect an individual from being held accountable for illegal, medically unethical, and dangerous conduct that led to a woman being coerced into terminating the life of her unborn child.”
Remy Coeytaux was charged on Jan. 8 in St. Tammany Parish with criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of 50 years of hard labor.
‘The trauma of my chemical abortion still haunts me.’
Murrill announced on Tuesday — several months after indicating that she would “pursue anyone and use any legal means available” to hold accountable those who distribute abortion pills in the Bayou State — that a criminal arrest warrant had been signed for Coeytaux and his name had been entered into the National Crime Information Center.
Roughly an hour later, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry indicated that he was “signing the extradition paperwork to bring this California doctor to justice.”
“Louisiana has a zero tolerance policy for those who subvert our laws, seek to hurt women, and promote abortion,” said Landry. “I know Gavin Newsom supports abortion in all its forms, but that doesn’t work in Louisiana. We are unapologetically pro-life.”
Shuran Huang for the Washington Post via Getty Images
Newsom said in response that “Louisiana’s request is denied.”
“We will not allow extremist politicians from other states to reach into California and try to punish doctors based on allegations that they provided reproductive health care services. Not today. Not ever,” said Newsom. “We will never be complicit with Trump’s war on women.”
Newsom suggested that this frustration of Louisiana justice was consistent with his 2022 executive order directing California to decline extradition requests for doctors accused of providing or facilitating abortions.
Nancy Northup, the president and chief executive of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing Coeytaux in a separate civil case, told the New York Times that the allegations “are unproven and should not be reported as fact.”
“Women should also be able to get safe and legal abortion care in their own state,” added Northup. “Thousands of women seek abortion pills via mail every year because abortion is banned in their state, and that will not change until abortion is legal everywhere.”
While characterized as safe, abortion pills not only kill unborn children but endanger women’s lives. The Ethics and Public Policy Center noted in a report last year that over 10% of women “experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious adverse event within 45 days following a mifepristone abortion.”
Coeytaux is accused in a federal lawsuit of sending abortion pills to a Louisiana woman in 2023 — a woman who has indicated she was pressured to take the drugs and is now “haunt[ed]” by her chemical abortion.
Rosalie Markezich, the recipient of the drug and now suffering from the fallout of the abortion, claimed in a September court filing that despite initially celebrating her pregnancy, her boyfriend “soon changed his mind,” then used her personal email address and mailing address to obtain mifepristone and misoprostol “from an online provider that his sister has used multiple times before.”
A few days after allegedly forwarding to Coeytaux the $150 her boyfriend sent her, Markezich received the drugs by mail.
According to her declaration, Markezich changed her mind about killing her child, but her boyfriend, who “had anger issues and a criminal record,” allegedly coerced her into taking them — and she proved unable to throw them back up.
“The trauma of my chemical abortion still haunts me,” said Markezich.
Coeytaux is also named in a civil complaint filed in July with the federal court for the Southern District of Texas. The Texas complaint alleges that a woman, Kendal Garza, was pressured by her estranged husband to use abortion drugs allegedly obtained from Coeytaux “to murder” Garza’s unborn child by another man.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) ordered Coeytaux on Aug. 14 to cease and desist from mailing abortion drugs into the state of Texas and indicated such conduct not only violates Texas state law but the federal Comstock Act of 1873, which prohibits the mailing of abortion-related drugs.
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How a pro-life law in Kentucky lets mothers get away with murder
Melinda Spencer allegedly took abortion pills, ended the life of her unborn son, and buried his remains in a shallow grave in her backyard.
Yet a law in Kentucky exempting women from prosecution after obtaining an abortion — a law supported by the most influential pro-life organization in the state — appears to have prevented prosecutors from holding Spencer accountable for murder.
If a state refuses to make murder illegal for everyone, then some human beings will remain unprotected by design.
According to court documents cited by local media, Spencer, 35, told Kentucky State Police that the child “was not her boyfriend’s, and she did not want him to find out she was pregnant with another man’s baby.”
To conceal the pregnancy, Spencer allegedly ordered abortion pills online, intending to end the life of her unborn child without medical supervision.
Police say Spencer took the pills the day after Christmas, placed her deceased son in a light bulb box, and buried him in a shallow grave in her backyard. An autopsy determined the child was around 20 weeks’ gestation at the time of his death.
Initially Spencer was charged with first-degree fetal homicide, abuse of a corpse, concealing the birth of an infant, and tampering with physical evidence.
This week, however, Kentucky prosecutors dropped the homicide charge — not because they doubt that Spencer intentionally caused the death of her unborn child but because Kentucky law explicitly prohibits prosecuting a pregnant woman who murders her own unborn child.
Miranda King, the prosecutor overseeing the case, acknowledged this limitation directly. In a public statement, she explained that the relevant statute “prohibits the prosecution of a pregnant woman who caused the death of her unborn child.” Spencer still faces the remaining, lesser charges.
King made clear that this frustrating outcome was not her preference.
“I sought this job with the intention of being a pro-life prosecutor but must do so within the boundaries allowed by the Kentucky state law I’m sworn to defend,” she said. “I will prosecute the remaining lawful charges fully and fairly.”
Kentucky is widely regarded as a conservative state with strong pro-life laws. Many Americans assume abortion was effectively banned there after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. This case exposes how incomplete that assumption is.
RELATED: Why the pro-life movement fails without a Christian worldview
jcphoto via iStock/Getty Images
Kentucky’s leading pro-life advocacy organization, Kentucky Right to Life, has long supported laws that shield women from criminal liability for abortion. In practice, this ensures that abortion remains legal for women, even if clinics are closed.
In 2021, Kentucky Right to Life joined more than 70 other pro-life organizations in signing a national letter declaring opposition to “any measure seeking to criminalize or punish women” who obtain abortions.
Since then, the organization has opposed multiple abolition bills that would have established equal protection under the law for unborn children — specifically because such legislation would allow for the prosecution of mothers who willfully procure abortions.
Addia Wuchner, Kentucky Right to Life’s executive director, opposed an abolition bill in 2023 on the grounds that it might expose mothers to criminal charges. She took the same position last year, arguing that women are victims of coercion by the abortion industry.
That framing has deadly consequences.
Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP via Getty Images
Following Spencer’s arrest, Wuchner publicly expressed sympathy for the accused, describing Spencer as likely being “on her own” and calling that “probably the greatest tragedy,” before adding that “of course … a child’s life was lost.”
The ordering is revealing. The alleged murder of a child was treated as secondary to the emotional state of the alleged murderer. Empathy displaced justice and accountability.
There are cases in which women are coerced into abortions under genuine duress. But coercion cannot be presumed as a universal explanation. By all available evidence, Spencer appears to have acted deliberately. Kentucky law nevertheless forecloses full accountability — and ensures that the central act in this case cannot be adjudicated as homicide.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, states like Kentucky have continued to see record abortion levels, largely through self-managed chemical abortions ordered online. Laws that categorically exempt women from prosecution guarantee this outcome.
If a state refuses to make murder illegal for everyone, then some human beings will remain unprotected by design. And when that exemption applies even in cases involving concealment, burial, and admitted intent, justice becomes impossible by statute.
So long as that remains the case, women who willfully kill their unborn children in Kentucky will continue to get away with murder.
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(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for records from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) related to a federally funded human fetal tissue research program at the University of Pittsburgh (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. […]
The post Judicial Watch Sues HHS for Records of Taxpayer Funding of Human Fetal Tissue Research at Univ. of Pittsburgh appeared first on Judicial Watch.
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The post Judicial Watch Sues Justice Department for Records about Planned Parenthood’s Transfer of Human Fetal Tissue appeared first on Judicial Watch.
Why the pro-life movement fails without a Christian worldview
In the United States and other Western nations, pro-life organizations are the primary means through which conservative Christians oppose legalized abortion.
With their cultural engagement and legislative efforts, these pro-life groups and leaders purport to oppose the murder of preborn babies, ultimately desiring the complete end of abortion. But a simple examination of the worldviews held by these groups shows that many are not operating in a distinctly Christian fashion, even when they are led by professing Christians.
We continue to practice child sacrifice today through abortion.
Some pro-life organizations are self-admittedly non-sectarian, seeking to build coalitions of anti-abortion people who may be Christians, other religious conservatives, agnostics and atheists, or feminists.
But even the pro-life groups that are convictionally Christian, or led by convictional Christians, often functionally set aside the Christian worldview.
The church through the ages, bearing the gospel of life, has been the means by which the deathly deeds of child sacrifice have been overturned in countless cultures. The dearth of a Christian worldview in the current anti-abortion movement should, therefore, be gravely concerning to any believer who likewise wants to see modern child sacrifice abolished.
The doctrine of man
Christianity teaches that humans are creatures made in the image of God with rational souls (Ecclesiastes 7:29), but that mankind fell in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1-7) and became dead in sin (Ephesians 2:1-3). We, therefore, have a thoroughly corrupted nature by which we are innately inclined toward evil (Romans 3:10-18).
The act of child sacrifice is one particularly brazen form of evil toward which man has always been predisposed. The murder of children for reasons of prosperity or convenience has occurred on every continent and was practiced by most major civilizations at some point in their history.
We continue to practice child sacrifice today through abortion.
In almost every abortion decision, the motivation is a rejection of inconvenient responsibility, the desire to prioritize college or career, or some other factor that could never even start to approach a justified reason for murdering an innocent human made in the image of God.
Western nations used to presuppose the Christian worldview. But in recent centuries, Enlightenment ideas have corrupted or entirely usurped the Christian worldview, especially concerning the sinful state of human nature.
Rather than saying that mankind is a valuable yet fallen creature, Enlightenment heretics taught that humans are fundamentally blank slates or even morally good and that with education or infusion of knowledge, mankind can experience true moral progression.
Such a worldview can be seen in pro-life groups claiming that “if wombs had windows, babies would be protected from abortions.” Others say that they are working to “make abortion unthinkable,” as if sin could ever be made completely unthinkable to fallen sinners.
Enlightenment presuppositions about human nature also impact pro-life legislative strategy. Many pro-life groups try to pass laws that seek to mandate informed consent or require viewing ultrasounds before a woman willfully decides to murder her preborn baby.
While some pregnant mothers, especially those who are already soliciting the help of a crisis pregnancy center, may choose life after seeing an ultrasound image of their babies, there are still plenty of others who choose to murder their babies even after seeing the images.
In other words, abortion is not caused by mere ignorance, but by the selfish desires of fallen men and women who value their own prosperity or convenience more than the very lives of their children.
We indisputably live in a culture of death that increasingly accepts abortion. But the development of this culture has occurred alongside the most rapid development of ultrasound technology.
In past generations, mothers and fathers did not see advanced ultrasounds of their preborn babies, yet those generations were considerably more anti-abortion than their children and grandchildren are today. In our current culture, everyone has seen ultrasounds of their own children or the children of others, but abortion is more accepted and even normalized, despite this increased knowledge about life in the womb.
The answer to legalized abortion is not merely an infusion of more education or knowledge for those who would willfully murder their preborn babies.
The answer to legalized abortion is to make abortion illegal. But pro-life organizations are often hesitant to embrace such a position.
The doctrine of government
Christianity teaches that God has established civil authorities to govern human society (Genesis 9:6). These civil authorities are servants of God commanded to bear the sword (Romans 13:1-7) against those who practice evil (1 Peter 2:14). The government exists under the dominion of Jesus Christ (Revelation 19:16) to uphold the public good and to deter evil conduct through the threat of swift punishment (Ecclesiastes 8:11). The act of murdering a preborn baby qualifies for such penalties (Exodus 21:22-25).
Most pro-life organizations would agree with God that abortion is murder. Many would agree that because preborn babies are made in the image of God, there is no inherent moral difference between murdering a person who has been born and a person who has not yet been born.
But when legislating against abortion, they almost never extend that moral equivalence into a legal equivalence, and they functionally address abortion as less than murder.
Many pro-life groups have even actively subverted efforts to establish equal protection of the laws for preborn babies.
Rather than simply treating abortion as murder, they self-admittedly seek to be “innovative” with the laws they write, and they almost never create effective anti-abortion deterrents as a result.
The vast majority of pro-life bills regulate the circumstances of abortion. They allow for abortion once certain conditions are met, such as murdering a baby provided that he or she receives a proper burial, or murdering a baby before he or she reaches a certain stage of development.
Some even adopt the false moral framework of abortion activists by regulating abortion like health care. They allow abortion after the woman who desires to murder her preborn baby first obtains permission from a doctor, essentially legitimizing and sanitizing abortion through the health care system.
There are many proposals specifically targeted at providers of abortion pills, ignoring the reality that even if the flow of abortion pills is truly halted, many methods of abortions exist beyond those substances and have become increasingly popular in recent years.
These laws largely shift behavior rather than save lives, ensuring that abortions continue through legally sanctioned channels instead of deterring the act of abortion entirely.
The emphasis of these pro-life regulations is not criminalizing abortion as murder. If the pro-life groups that write such legislation acted consistently with their professed beliefs about abortion as murder, they would seek to criminalize all abortion accordingly.
But instead of pursuing such an objective, many pro-life groups have even actively subverted efforts to establish equal protection of the laws for preborn babies.
Christian organizations have repeatedly proposed bills that would simply extend the existing homicide, assault, and wrongful death laws that protect born people in order to protect preborn people. Rather than supporting those bills, leading pro-life groups have issued a national open letter to all lawmakers in the U.S., urging them to oppose such proposals because they could lead to penalties for women who willfully have abortions.
Over the past decade, state and national pro-life organizations have been instrumental in subverting dozens of equal protection bills, largely in conservative states that should otherwise have the power to abolish abortion.
The task of civil authorities, as the Christian worldview affirms, is the punishment of wicked conduct, which preserves innocent life by deterring future wicked conduct and provides justice on behalf of the victims. God clearly expects abortion, which is an act of murder, to be punished by civil authorities.
When pro-life groups advocate for regulating abortion rather than punishing those who willfully murder their preborn babies, they protect the legally sanctioned practice of abortion and keep the sword of justice in the sheath.
These pro-life groups not only enable the murder of preborn babies made in the image of God, but protect conduct that damages the bodies and souls of the perpetrators.
The doctrine of repentance
Christianity teaches that repentance occurs when a sinner sees his or her sin as contrary to the nature and law of God (1 John 3:9), despises those sins (2 Corinthians 7:10), and turns from them to Jesus Christ (Acts 17:30-31). In order to properly confess sins, one must specifically name and acknowledge them before God (Psalm 32:5).
Many pro-life organizations not only oppose laws that could impose penalties on women who willfully have abortions, but actively write blanket legal immunity for women who have abortions into their laws. They insist that women who have abortions are categorically second victims, meaning that they cannot be held legally accountable for their actions.
Some pro-life groups claim that most women are coerced into abortions. Others insist that our culture of death removes all accountability from women by indoctrinating them into believing that their preborn babies are mere clumps of cells.
Such arguments are then used to support laws exempting all women — including those who can be shown in a court of law to have willfully murdered their preborn babies — from any criminal penalties.
But the assertions about widespread coercion are simply not true, as even surveys sponsored by pro-life research groups indicate that only a very small minority of women are truly forced into abortions they do not want.
In the same way, merely choosing to convince oneself of falsehood does not excuse evil actions that follow from those lies and almost never qualifies for the mistake of fact necessary to excuse someone of legal culpability.
Beyond the poor arguments required to support the claim that all women are categorical victims of abortion, and the ways in which they undermine the cultural and political credibility of pro-life groups, these arguments also deprive women who have had abortions of true repentance and, therefore, true forgiveness.
Those with a Christian worldview would invite a woman who has murdered her own preborn baby to confess her sin before God and receive abundant forgiveness through the gospel. But pro-life groups and leaders who believe that all women are second victims of abortion have little to offer such women beyond hollow “sympathy” and therapeutic reassurance.
If a woman is a mere victim who has not committed sin, then she has no need of repentance because she has no specific fault to confess before God.
But most women are willful participants in their own abortions. When pro-life groups insist to all women that they are indeed victims, they rob the very women they claim to love of any hope for true peace and pardon.
The pro-life groups functionally seeking to oppose abortion outside the Christian worldview will continue in their failure to end abortion. They will continue to lose, not only to the detriment of their cause but to the detriment of countless millions of preborn babies.
Christianity alone has the potency to end child sacrifice in a depraved civilization like the U.S. and the broader Western world. If we want to abolish abortion, Christians must never set aside the truth of God, but instead rely on the light of those truths to dispel the darkness of child sacrifice once and for all.
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