Introducing the Lifeline: A New Pro-Life Newsletter

In this life after Roe v. Wade, there is even more to keep up with and be challenged by when it comes to innocent, vulnerable human life. I’m pleased to announce The Lifeline, a forthcoming weekly newsletter of my commentary and curation, to give you a trusty roundup and filter for news and encouragement.

Sign up to receive it in your inbox here. Today’s edition will just be on NRO, but we’ll plan to email The Lifeline out soon.

So let’s get started . . .

The Lies Have It for Media Awards

I can’t think of anything more perversely perfect in post-Roe America than ProPublica’s winning a Pulitzer Prize for their misleading abortion coverage. Media coverage of life after Roe in the states has been about doubling down on death and human misery. I remember being at the Museum of the Bible the day after the March for Life a year ago January. There’s this cool new David Network of conservative Ivy League kids that a now-graduate of Columbia University started. He originally envisioned it as a pro-life network, but it’s gotten a little broader. I was bummed about that -- until I spoke on a panel about pro-life matters and a gal from Columbia, as it happens, came up to me and said it was news to her that abortion opponents didn’t want pregnant women with sepsis or cancer to die. With the best of intentions, she didn’t think it was humane to even consider the pro-life point of view because we were supposedly so heartless. Knowing actual facts about morality, law, and practice made her a little free-er that day.

We’d like to think that’s what National Review and National Review Institute exist for. Because the truth will set you free and all.

One of our wildly talented Buckley fellows, Kayla Bartsch, wrote about the Pulitzer here. Famous baseball crank Dan McLaughlin wrote about ProPublica and chemical abortion earlier for NRO. Our friend Leah Libresco Sargeant is worth reading on the topic here.

Speaking of Dan, I forgot to ask him if he has a baseball-fan opinion on the pope -- and the early fake news I helped perpetuate that he was a Cubs fan. In fairness, I was talking with a Cubs fan (Charlie Camosy) and made clear it didn’t really matter because he wasn’t a Yankees fan.

Pope Bob and Life
(His brothers call him “Rob,” but Cardinal Tobin from Newark referred to him as “Bob.” Of course, Cardinal Dolan points out that the man is, ontologically, a new person today compared with who he was going into the Sistine Chapel.)

Pretty sure my heart sang when I discovered Pope Leo XIV had posted from a Peruvian March for Life on X. He also apparently founded Villanova’s pro-life club as an undergrad there. Not that that’s what pro-life cred looks like. And, of course, his clarity in defense of life didn’t end early in life.

And, so, yes, the pope is Catholic.

Will Planned Parenthood Actually Be Defunded Now?
Planned Parenthood has always had the ability to fundraise from their celebrity supporters. Instead, the Party of Death -- which includes Ds and Rs, but mostly Ds -- makes sure to do its bidding, the Democratic Party basically being a wholly owned subsidiary of Planned Parenthood. Who will ever forget the report by Jake Tapper on Catholics, including Joe Biden, in the Obama administration, that asked behind the scenes why they were choosing to pick a fight with nuns (the Little Sisters of the Poor)? Some of the right instincts were in the room (Leon Panetta asked: “What’s the point?”), but the now-late Cecile Richards, who was president of Planned Parenthood at the time, shot them down in the West Wing.

Anyway, there should be no good reason for Planned Parenthood not to be defunded by Congress right now. Unless Republicans want to make a statement that as their platform makes clear since this summer, they are not actually pro-life.

Dan wrote about this here.

Women Don’t Have Choices at Planned Parenthood. They Do Elsewhere

Planned Parenthood is outnumbered by federally qualified community-health centers, which provide more comprehensive health care, in the U.S. A new report from the Charlotte Lozier Institute, a research sister to Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, has the details.

I talked with a lead researcher on the survey, Tessa Cox.

Abortion pills, by the way, are more dangerous than the Food and Drug Administration has previously led us to believe, a report from the Ethics and Public Policy Center -- which came out as (clear-on-life) Pope Francis died -- indicates. I’ve talked with the president of Heartbeat International, Jor-El Godsey, as he was walking into Heartbeat’s annual convention, and ethicist and former Democrats for Life board member Charlie Camosy about the report.

And definitely listen to lead EPPC researcher Jamie Bryan Hall challenge the FDA to restore safeguards on the pills and replicate their study (a.k.a. do their job).

Puberty-Blockers-R-Us

Besides abortion, Planned Parenthood’s idea of health care increasingly includes gender transitioning. And a Live Action undercover investigation released this week shows that Planned Parenthood dispenses drugs for transitioning to 16-year-olds. That is: minors.

Closing Time

I was recently on New York Cardinal Dolan’s Catholic Channel Sirius XM show (about 23 minutes in) to talk about the closing of the flagship Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Manhattan, formerly named after Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood’s founder, who was a eugenicist who wanted to eliminate black and brown and poor babies. And in some zip codes in New York, more black and Hispanic babies are aborted than born.

I interviewed not-pope-but-papal-elector Dolan (reversed roles from the radio show, where he interviewed me) last month, at the 40th-anniversary symposium for Good Counsel Homes, a maternity-home network in New York.

Is New York Suicidal?
Cardinal Dolan took time out from electing the next pope this week to urge New York not to become the eleventh state to legalize doctor-assisted suicide.

The issue has been in the background in Albany for the better part of a decade, with Compassion and Choices (formerly the Hemlock Society) putting national money into a wish-list state. In recent weeks it has reared its cruel head again, passing out of committee for the first time, and then the assembly. As I write, the state senate does not have it on the schedule, and Governor Kathy Hochul -- an abortion enthusiast -- has not indicated if she will sign the “Medical Aid in Dying” bill.

Hochul praised Pope Francis upon his death but did not mention his opposition to assisted suicide, which he considered a key component of a “throwaway society.”

Last weekend, she did, however, notice Donald Trump’s juvenile tweet depicting him in a miter and other papal regalia. She said she was offended, as a Catholic. How convenient to selectively call upon your religion.

We ran this piece on NRO by a doctor in New York opposing the push for assisted suicide in the Empire State.

Speaking of Popes and the Culture of Death

John J. Miller remembers Pope Francis as a leading voice against abortion.

There’s so much more to say. But this inaugural note has already gotten too long. Perhaps as a belated Mother’s Day tribute, I will say more later.

Meanwhile, God bless mothers -- the most important “job” in the world.

The Modern-Day Mother Cabrini Is Married

May is National Foster Care Month, and earlier this week I was doing some board duties with Springs of Love, a Catholic ministry for married couples who are foster and/or adoptive parents. The Catholic Church used to be the leader in caring for the orphan, in the ways the Gospel mandates. Religious sisters, like Saint Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini and Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, built orphanages in the early 19th and 20th centuries. We have fewer sisters than we once did, but over 400,000 children in the foster-care system. A write-up naming Kimberly Henkel a Catholic of the Year last year explained that Springs of Love (which she co-founded with her husband) provides practical support to Catholic families that have opened themselves to caring for vulnerable children, entering an often-chaotic system in order to do so. Springs of Love teams pray, make meals, and provide other material and emotional support to families struggling to care for children overwhelmingly suffering from trauma. More than half of resource families withdraw within a year, but studies show that 90 percent continue to foster when supported by a care team in their community. Henkel is also active in raising awareness surrounding foster parenting, connecting Catholic foster families with one another, and encouraging parishes to partner with Springs of Love.

In an under-ten-minute video, hear a bit of the Henkel family story here.

Keep K-Lo in the Loop
If you have research, resources, events, or anything else having to do with the protection of innocent/unborn/suffering human life, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. This weekly feature (again, soon to be a real-life emailed newsletter) is meant to give you a sense of what the pro-life movement is up to -- and what it should be! Please email me at: Klopez@nationalreview.com.

P.S.: Know anyone who would benefit from The Lifeline? I’ll send them a hello and invite if you send me their email address. Thank you.

Have a good life, until next time.