November is National Adoption Month, and as believers and Americans who care about families, we have the opportunity this month to help. Please take a moment to learn what’s going on and then lend your voice to help children awaiting adoption!
The answer probably seems obvious if we asked: When it comes to policies on adoption, should kids or politics come first? With nearly 125,000 children in the United States awaiting adoption and the average adoption wait time for a child in foster care at 31 months, of course the answer is that children should come first.
But, sadly, for many years the policy of our federal government put politics over children. It all started when the Obama Administration issued a last-minute rule saying that even faith-based entities working with the government to help children find forever homes had to comply with the Administration’s sexual agenda. In other words, the Obama Administration said that faith-based entities had to agree with the Administration on LGBT issues (even though LGBT classifications aren’t part of federal law) or—in many cases—shut down their ministry.
Faith-based ministries often specialize in placing hard-to-place children in forever homes—older children, special-needs children, and more. So, sadly, already-vulnerable children are those who suffer most when politics gets in the way of good adoption policy.
Thankfully, the Trump Administration is now prioritizing adoption—and working to keep kids first. His Health and Human Services Department (HHS) just issued a proposed new rule that protects faith-based adoption ministries—ensuring they will not be forced to choose between their faith and their service to their community’s children. This means that more agencies will be able to help children find a home—which makes the most sense when it comes to adoption policy.
Thousands of you have already thanked President Trump for prioritizing children and adoption in this way! Thank you so much!
But, more help is needed. The next step to ensuring that President Trump’s proposed rule becomes official adoption policy is called a “public comment period.” This means that the HHS Department will collect comments from the general public about whether or not to finalize the rule. You can be sure that they will hear from activists and others who want to keep the Obama-era policy that puts politics over children.
So, please join us in submitting as many comments as possible from believers, churches, families, and those who simply care about putting children first in support of President Trump’s proposed new rule!
Leaving a comment is very simple. Just click here, complete the simple form (comment and name) and click “Continue”. On the following page, just confirm and submit.
To make it even easier, here are some talking points to use when you write them—even a short paragraph is a huge help!
- I’m thankful that the Trump Administration is prioritizing adoption and making clear that children come first in his Administration’s adoption policy.
- I agree that faith-based agencies should be free to serve children, birth moms, and adoptive families according to their beliefs, and shouldn’t be punished by the government because of their faith.
- With so many children awaiting adoption, more adoption agencies serving these children (and giving birthmothers more options) is a very good thing!
- I fully support the proposed new rule RIN 0991-AC16.
For Keeping Kids First,
Autumn Leva, Esq.
Vice President for Strategy
By Brittany Jones, Esq.
Last week, we told you about the letter that Family Policy Alliance – along with over 40 pro-life organizations – sent to Alex Azar, who heads the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). We asked Secretary Azar to cancel a contract with Advanced Bioscience Resources that procured aborted baby parts for research in mice.
The response was swift! In response to the letter we sent, HHS rescinded the contract. This is a huge win for the pro-life movement and shows that our voice can and does make a difference. By your support, we are able to use our collective voices to affect departmental policies like this. Importantly, the Press Release from the department states:
“[The Advanced Bioscience Resources’] contract has been terminated, and HHS is now conducting an audit of all acquisitions involving human fetal tissue to ensure conformity with procurement and human fetal-tissue research laws and regulations. In addition, HHS has initiated a comprehensive review of all research involving fetal tissue to ensure consistency with statutes and regulations governing such research, and to ensure the adequacy of procedures and oversight of this research in light of the serious regulatory, moral, and ethical considerations involved.”
There is still much more to be done. HHS is still doing research using aborted babies, just not with this specific company. It is important that you ask them to end all research that requires aborted babies. They are investigating their practices, which will hopefully lead to them banning all research of this nature. However, they need to hear from you.
Please thank Secretary Azar for cancelling this contract and call on him to end all research using aborted babies. It only takes a moment on our Action Center.
Let him know this not how the HHS should be using your tax dollars, but rather these funds should be used to fund ethical alternatives. This is a fantastic first step and shows that the Trump Administration is listening. But there is more to be done to protect the dignity of the pre-born.
Brittany Jones, Esq., is policy manager for Family Policy Alliance
By Brittany Jones, Esq., policy manager for Family Policy Alliance
Earlier this summer it was discovered that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) signed a contract with a procurement organization for human fetal tissue, otherwise known as baby body parts, to be used in experiments with mice. The baby body parts are being used to create “humanized mice,” essentially mice with human immune systems. So not only is the FDA attempting create a part rodent, part human creature in order to do testing, but they are using aborted babies and tax dollars to support defiling human dignity.
As if that weren’t bad enough, this contract encourages the continuation of elective abortions. Across the country over 600,000 abortions happen annually. This contract only increases demand for women to abort their babies.
Further, it inadvertently encourages abortion providers to mislead women about what will happen to their baby once the baby is aborted. The Center for Medical Progress discovered that abortion providers were tricking women into allowing research to be done using their aborted baby’s body parts.
This is why Family Policy Alliance, along with our national ally Susan B. Anthony List and nearly four dozen other prolife leaders, called on Health and Human Services’ head, Secretary Azar, to end the FDA’s contract with the fetal tissue procurement entity. We point out that Advanced Bioscience Resource, the company that the FDA has contracted with, is under federal investigation for profiting from sales of fetal organs. We also question the transparency and the openness of the Department of Health for concealing this contract and other contracts associated with the Department that involve procuring fetal remains.
Importantly, the letter points out that using human baby parts is not medically necessary to do the proposed research. “Contrary to claims, there is no scientific requirement of aborted fetal tissue to construct humanized mice . . . But good scientific alternatives exist to this grisly sourcing . . . There are abundant modern scientific alternatives, making aborted fetal tissue unnecessary.”
If you are interested, you can read the full letter for yourself here.
Hillary Clinton’s claim that women cannot succeed without abortions is false. The claim that we cannot fully understand the human immune system without killing preborn babies and desecrating their remains is false. We hope you will work with us to restore a nation where God is honored and life is cherished.