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MISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN
AGAINST AYOTTE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE SENATE PRIMARY Part One of Three Good evening, and thanks for reading Today's News & Views. Part Two discusses the latest example of distressing news for pro-abortion Democrats. Part Three analyses Judge Royce Lambert's refusal to stay his decision thwarting the Obama stem cell policy. Over at National Right to Life News Today (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org), you'll read about the anticipated release of a human rights activist who exposed forced abortion and sterilization in China. You'll also be brought up to speed on the latest misinformation from actor Michael J. Fox and the good news about pro-life camps for young people. Please send your comments on Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha.
The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) today issued a memorandum (www.nrlc.org/press_releases_new/090710memoAyotte.pdf) drafted by NRLC Director of State Legislation Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., refuting recent charges that New Hampshire Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte is misrepresenting her pro-life credentials because when serving as Attorney General, Ayotte was somehow responsible for the defeat of the state's Parental Notification Law in court. Critics also challenge her pro-life stance because she "approved" the payment of Planned Parenthood's attorney's fees in the case of Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. Ayotte has been endorsed by both the National Right to Life Political Action Committee and New Hampshire's Citizens for Life Political Action Committee and is running to secure the Republican nomination for Senate. "Those who charge that Attorney General Ayotte is not pro-life because of the Parental Notification Law court challenge are misinformed at best or, at worst, are playing fast and loose with the facts in an eleventh-hour attack to damage her campaign for the United States Senate," said Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D. "Anyone who actually studies the timeline and the facts will find that Ayotte used her office to vigorously defend the law all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court only to have pro-abortion members of the New Hampshire legislature ultimately repeal the act in the middle of the legal challenge." As Balch points out in the memorandum, Peter Heed was attorney general when the case was lost in the U.S. District Court. After appealing the case to the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, Heed resigned and was replaced by Ayotte. She appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court over the objections of pro-abortion Governor John Lynch. The High Court unanimously agreed that the appeals court had erred in rejecting the law in its entirety and remanded the case to the lower court. However the New Hampshire legislature repealed the law during the appeals process in 2007. On July 12, 2007, U.S. District Judge DiClerico ruled that the case was moot in light of the law's repeal. Ayotte's critics cite the attorney's fees paid by the state of New Hampshire to Planned Parenthood over the court challenge. But Judge DiClerico had issued an opinion finding that Planned Parenthood was entitled to attorney fees and court costs and ordered both sides to meet and make their best efforts to resolve the amount, to avoid further court proceedings. As Balch notes, "Ayotte had no alternative but to negotiate the best settlement possible. "If we are to see a reversal of Roe v. Wade, our Movement must constantly push to enact, and attorneys general must constantly defend, laws that push at its boundaries," Balch added. "Kelly Ayotte did just that when she used every tool at her disposal to protect the rights of minor girls and their parents in New Hampshire. It is unfair and unjust to accuse her of doing otherwise in order to score political points in the final week of her primary campaign." The full memo is available at www.nrlc.org/press_releases_new/090710memoAyotte.pdf. |
