Boisclair works for the Society for Truth and Justice, an anti-abortion group whose staffers are running primary challenges around the country in order to exploit a campaign law loophole and get graphic ads aired on broadcast television, as the Minnesota Independent first reported.

In a press release titled, “Christian challenges Muslim for congressional seat,” Boisclair announced that he had launched his first ad.

“We did not pick this fight,” Boisclair said. “Islam’s war against Christianity and human liberty has raged against us for 1,400 years. We are merely responding with the truth.”

“The call to violent acts against Christians and Jews within this ‘holy’ book should alarm every American. The fact that a U.S. Congressman swore an oath on a book that calls for most of us to be persecuted is an outrage.”

The video was deemed offensive by Youtube and promptly pulled from the video hosting service. Ellison praised the move.

“I’d like to thank YouTube for removing the ad because it violated the company’s ‘policy on shocking and disgusting content,’” Ellison wrote in a statement. “The people of Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District elected me to uphold our Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion for every American. I intend to maintain the high level of civility the voters expect and deserve. And, I will continue working with our communities to organize for greater inclusion of people of all faiths and backgrounds.”

Boisclair, who currently works in Washington, DC, for the Society for Truth and Justice is one of several candidates from that organization running in primary challenges against House members in order to force local media outlets to air the candidates’ ads no matter how graphic.

The Federal Communications Act of 1934 says that all candidates for a specific office must have equal access to public airwaves.

Randall Terry, an anti-abortion activist who founded the group, is also running a Democratic primary challenge against President Obama. Earlier this week, Terry began soliciting $100,000 in donations to air graphic anti-abortion ads in the 2012 Democratic primaries and caucuses.

Boisclair told the Hopkins Patch that he doesn’t yet have the money to air his anti-Islam ads, but hopes to in time for the election

Here’s Boisclair’s new ad:

He also wants to reinstitute the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, pass a workplace religious freedom act and allow prayer at school events.

Santorum said other candidates are focused on tax plans, and he admitted that getting the economy going is “job number one.” But there’s more to government than government and the economy, he said.

“But the people of Iowa, at least the folks that I’ve been talking to, they understand that there’s more to America than taxes and spending,” Santorum said. “There’s more to America than just the size and scale of government.”

Santorum said the after completing a visit of every county in the state he wanted to present his plans for supporting faith, family and freedom as president.

“I decided after, as we wrap up this tour and celebrate this tour … that I would try to put forth some ideas to reflect the values of the people of this state,” Santorum said.

Social and cultural issues can’t be separated from economic issues, Santorum said, and these actions will help jumpstart the economy.

“The economy is inextricably linked to the moral fabric of this country,” Santorum said. “And we can’t have a real solution-based conversation about fixing the economic problems in this country without faith and family being a large part of that conversation.”

Santorum ended his speech, attended by about 50 people, with a plea for support.

“A lot of campaigns will come out and tell you that they need your help and support. They’re lying, they don’t,” Santorum said to applause and laughter. “I do. All those other campaigns have a lot more money than we do, have a lot more coverage in the national media than I do. I really need you.”

Here is the list of actions Santorum said he’d take as president:

Executive Orders, Rulemaking and other Executive Branch Actions:

• Repeal Clinton-era Title X family planning regulations, and will direct HHS to restore the separation of Title X family planning from abortion practices and restore a ban on referrals for abortion
• Reinstitute the Mexico City Policy to stop tax-payer funding or promotion of abortion overseas
• Ban federal funding for embryonic stem cell research
• Restore conscience clause protections for health care workers
• Defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court
• Ban military chaplains from performing same sex marriage ceremonies on military bases or other Federal properties
• Repeal Obamacare mandate for contraceptive services in healthcare plans
• Re-direct funds within HHS so it can create a public/private partnership with state &local communities, not-for-profit organizations, and faith-based organizations for the purpose of strengthening marriages, families, and fatherhood
• Veto any bill or budget that funds abortion or funds any organization that performs abortions including Planned Parenthood

Congressional Directives:

• Call on Congress to abolish the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
• Advocate for a Personhood Amendment to the Constitution
• Call on Congress to pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act
• Advocate for a Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution
• Call on Congress to reinstitute Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell
• Call on Congress to pass the Workplace Religious Freedom Act
• Call on Congress to reinstitute 2008-level funding for the Community Based Abstinence Education program
• Advocate for a federal law permitting schools to allow prayer at graduations, football games and other school functions

Boisclair is the latest member of the Society for Truth and Justice (STJ) to launch a primary challenge. David Lewis, a lobbyist for the Washington, D.C.-based STJ, announced in late-September that he is challenging House Speaker Jon Boehner in Ohio for the Republican primary. Lewis doesn’t live in the district and says he will move there if elected.

And Lewis is making abortion the sole issue of his campaign, as is anti-abortion activist Angela Michael who is running for Congress in the Chicago area.

Boisclair is running against Ellison in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District on the abortion issue as well.

STJ’s founder, Randall Terry, explained the strategy to Catholic Online.

“By running campaign ads in the top 25 media markets, we can reach 1/3 of the nation with a message about the truth and horror of abortion,” he said.

Boisclair is the latest of the STJ staffers to launch a campaign. His campaign website features graphic images of fetuses, and is virtually identical to Lewis’ and Michael’s. In fact, when the Minnesota Independent attempted to contact Boisclair, the email address on his website went to Lewis for Congress instead of Boisclair’s campaign email address.

In a document from Randall Terry posted on Boisclair’s website, Randall Terry lays out his campaign strategy (capitalization theirs):

WE WILL NEVER SAVE OUR ECONOMY, or CURE THESE OTHER ILLS, until we stop killing our children, BECAUSE THE HAND OF GOD WILL BE AGAINST US. Hence, our goal is to create a crisis of conscience for America, by showing the public the gruesome reality of “safe, legal, abortion;” pictures of murdered babies in TV ads. Federal Law Requires that TV Stations Run the Ads of Federal Candidates; Even Ads That Show Babies Murdered By Abortion! Every true pro-lifer in America needs to know this, and embrace this incredible chance to be a witness…a prophetic voice…for the babies. Every pro-lifer in America needs to catch the vision of ENDING THIS HOLOCAUST. “But Randall…” some will say, “surely they will find a way to get around the law; surely they will not run the ads.” WRONG!!! Federal Law
requires that TV stations run the ads that they are given, even if the ad shows aborted babies.

Despite the connections to Randall Terry and the push to get anti-abortion ads aired, Boisclair’s press release announcing his campaign tells a different story.

“I intend to defeat Mr. Ellison soundly in this primary, based upon the issues at hand. Congressman Keith Ellison has failed to represent the ethics and beliefs of this district,” he wrote. “At the onset of his tenure, Ellison took his Oath of office with his hand on a Quaran—a book which mandates violence against Jews and Christians. Ellison consistently legislates for socialist programs, which in effect make us the slave labor force of the federal government. Under his agenda, we are enslaved to heavy taxation, crushing debt, runaway inflation, and we are forced to ‘give’ our hard earned money to his favorite ‘entitlements.’”

Boisclair said Ellison’s track record is “even more nefarious.”

“Mr. Ellison has voted repeatedly to fund Planned Parenthood, a racist organization with a long history of discrimination against minorities, which has consistently targeted black and Hispanic minorities for the abortion of their children. Planned Parenthood is a racist, criminal syndicate, which covers up the crimes of pedophiles, rapists and sex traffickers; it slaughters nearly 1,000 unborn babies every day, and Keith Ellison is their brazen champion, as he hypocritically parades his Progressive Caucus motto, ‘Liberty and Justice for ALL.’”

Boisclair says his campaign will issue three ads on Monday.

Boisclair has long been involved with Terry’s STJ as well as another of Terry’s anti-abortion groups, Operation Rescue. He was arrested in front of Boehner’s office in March. He also protested Republican Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana this spring.

“Michael Pence did a great service for the babies by introducing an amendment to defund Planned Parenthood,” Boisclair said in a press statement at the time. “As a matter of duty to God, the babies, and his constituents, Mr. Pence must be willing to ‘die on this hill’ even if it means standing against the GOP leadership – and a government shut-down – to insure that this ‘criminal syndicate’ does not receive any more of our money.”

He wore a chicken suit at a protest during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan in 2010.

And in 2010, he wrote a letter to Catholic bishops urging them to deny communion to politicians that disagree with his stance on abortion.

Your Excellency:

We thank you for your service to us and to all the Church, and, in particular, for all that you have done for the unborn.

We humbly beg you to warn any Catholic Senator or House Member within your See or within your state: “If you vote for child-killing in ‘Health Care Reform,’ you will be denied Holy Communion.”

Is this not a bishop’s pastoral duty of mercy?

Jesus’ witness to the truth (Jn 18) cost him his life. Following Christ’s example many bishops have been martyred, including St. Timothy, St. Ignatius of Antioch, Pope St. Clement, and St. John Fisher.

STANDING UP FOR THE BABIES AND THE EUCHARIST IN THIS HOUR WILL SURELY NOT COST YOU YOUR LIFE!

Be of good courage and let your voice be heard!

Sincerely in Christ,

Diana Roccograndi, Gary Boisclair, Andrew Beacham

Late last year, the group crashed a holiday party hosted by NARAL.

At the time he said that the “people at NARAL and DC Abortion Fund have celebrated their selfish, deceptive, wicked ideas and called it a holiday party. We at Insurrecta Nex love them too much to fail to tell them the truth.

Boisclair is also running Randall Terry’s campaign for president in 2012. Terry announced earlier this year that he would challenge President Obama in the Democratic primaries in order to exploit the federal elections law that says media outlets cannot refuse to run a candidate’s advertising. Terry plans national anti-abortion ads in 2012, particularly during the Super Bowl.

“[Terry] wants to bring America face to face with the victims of abortion,” Boisclair said of the campaign. “He wants to be able to pummel Obama’s policies.”

Abortion via telemedicine in general refers to doctors who authorize the distribution of abortion-inducing drugs to women in rural areas with no access to abortion clinics. These abortions generally involve mifepristone, commonly referred to as RU-486, which is generally used in conjunction with a secondary drug misoprostol to end an early pregnancy. Both drugs have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

In a statement released Tuesday, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan expressed concern that banning discussion of or reference to abortion could have negative health impacts on women who live in rural areas who then experience “high-risk” pregnancies.

“Under Sen. DeMint’s extreme plan, if abortion came up in that doctor-patient conversation, the woman and her physician would have to go to a separate communications system,” Keenan said. “He’s calling for an abortion-only version of Skype. It is impractical, ridiculous, and, most importantly, bad for women in rural or remote areas who would not be able to discuss the full set of options with their doctor.”

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 87 percent of all U.S. counties lacked an abortion provider in 2008.

DeMint’s amendment is similar to one Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) introduced to the related related House Resolution 2112, or the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2012, which passed through the House in June.

During the House floor debate, King said one his intentions was to prevent Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from accessing a $15 million line-item in the bill reserved for the development of telemedicine services.

As The American Independent’s sister site The Iowa Independent previously reported, the language of King’s amendment — “none of the funds made available by this Act may be used for mifepristone, commonly known as RU-486, for any purpose” — does not specifically target the telemedicine line-item but applies to any and all appropriations within the bill.

“We have had 14 deaths of moms that have come from this; 2,207 adverse events, 339 blood transfusions [and] 612 hospitalizations,” said King on the House floor in June, but, as The Iowa Independent noted, he offered no source for his statistics. No deaths have been reported by women who have used the Iowa pilot telemedicine program — administered by Planned Parenthood of the Heartland — to which King was referring.

On Monday, LifeNews.com, which focuses on abortion-related issues, reported the same statistics King relayed to his colleagues, citing an FDA report (PDF). The report, which was uploaded by the Family Research Council, reveals information from U.S. post-marketing reports received by the FDA and documents “adverse events” that occurred among patients who had taken mifepristone for abortions.

“Because FDA has eliminated duplicate reports, and in some cases, reclassified the adverse event terms for individual cases after reviewing the narrative details,” the report notes, “the numbers provided here may differ from the numbers of the reports that may be obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.  These events cannot with certainty be causally attributed to mifepristone because of information gaps about patient health status, clinical management of the patient, concurrent drug use and other possible medical or surgical treatments.  The estimated number of women who have used mifepristone in the US through the end of April 2011 is approximately 1.52 million women.”

The bill was approved 251-170, with Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) joining a group of Democrats to support the bill. All other members of the Minnesota delegation split according to party, with the exception of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) who missed the vote.

The bill, named the “Protect Life Act,” would require insurers to set up programs that don’t provide abortion services in order to participate in the health insurance exchanges that are the backbone of the new health care law.

Perhaps its most controversial feature would also strengthen conscience exemptions for medical facilities that disagree with abortion, such as religious institutions. Opponents say this clause could lead to pregnant women being denied life-saving medical care.

On the House floor, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) told her story of having a medically-necessary abortion.

“I was pregnant. I was miscarrying. I was bleeding. If I had to go from one hospital to the next, trying to find one emergency room that would take me in, who knows if I would even be here today?” Speier said. “And what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are attempting to do is misogynist. It is absolutely misogynist. The time has come for us to stop taking up this issue over and over again this year and do something that the American people really care about.”

The legislation is unlikely to be introduced in the U.S. Senate.

And Pres. Barack Obama released a statement earlier this week vowing to veto the bill if it passes both houses of Congress. “The legislation intrudes on women’s reproductive freedom and access to health care and unnecessarily restricts the private insurance choices that women and their families have today. Longstanding Federal policy prohibits Federal funds from being used for abortions, except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered.”

Operation Rescue released a summary of its findings on Wednesday, the day before the U.S. House of Representatives is due to vote on House Resolution 358, or the “Protect Life Act,” which would amend the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to prohibit federal funds from going toward any health care plan that covers abortion services.

The goal of the Protect Life Act, which is expected to pass in the House but not receive a vote in the Senate, is to steer funds away from insurance plans that cover abortion services, making it more difficult for women to afford abortions.

In conjunction with Albuquerque, N.M.-based anti-abortion-rights group Project Defending Life, Operation Rescue’s team claims to have called abortion clinics in 12 states and learned that Medicaid would pay for abortions in each case, despite the fact that the hypothetical pregnancies described by the callers were not the result of rape or incest or deemed to be potentially fatal.

The group released the audio recordings from several of these conversations including one with the Southern Women’s Options clinic in Albuquerque, where the receptionist told (PDF) the caller certain Medicaid coverage would likely cover her abortion at 26 weeks of gestation, amounting to approximately $8,000 to $9,000. In the recording, the caller explains there is nothing physically wrong with her pregnancy but that she and her husband just changed their mind because he lost his job.

“It’s shocking that our tax dollars would pay $9,000 for a third-trimester abortion simply because of a lost job,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman in a statement. “The vast majority of the American people strongly object to their tax money being used in this way.”

As the Kaiser Family Foundation explains, the federal Hyde Amendment, passed in 1977, prohibits states from using federal Medicaid dollars to pay for abortions unless the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or the mother’s life is at risk; however, states can use their own funds to cover other “medically necessary” abortions for Medicaid recipients, usually defined by states as those “to protect the physical or mental health of the woman.”

The White House released a veto threat (PDF) against the bill Wednesday:

The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 358 because … the legislation intrudes on women’s reproductive freedom and access to health care and unnecessarily restricts the private insurance choices that women and their families have today. Longstanding Federal policy prohibits Federal funds from being used for abortions, except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered.  The Affordable Care Act preserved this prohibition and included policies to ensure that Federal funding is segregated from any private dollars used to fund abortions for which Federal funding is prohibited.  The President’s Executive Order 13535 reinforces that Federal funding cannot be used for abortions (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered) and ensures proper enforcement of this policy.

Though the bill has little chance of getting past the U.S. Senate or Pres. Barack Obama, it is part of Bachmann’s new campaign tactic of appealing to social conservatives to shore up a floundering campaign.

“A pregnant woman who enters an abortion clinic is faced with a decision that will forever change two lives,” Bachmann said of the bill in a statement. “That’s why she must have the very best information with which to make that decision. The ‘Heartbeat Informed Consent Act,’ that I introduced today, would require that abortion providers make the unborn child’s heartbeat visible through ultrasound, describe the cardiac activity, and make the baby’s heartbeat audible, if the child is old enough for it to be detectable.”

Bachmann also recently said she would push for a constitutional amendment banning abortion if she was elected president.

At the same time, her campaign released an online video where she laid out her credentials in opposing abortion and rights for same-sex couples.

Bachmann has been touring Iowa this week, pushing a strong anti-abortion message.

On Wednesday, she hit two stops to talk about the issue. In Des Moines, she told anti-abortion activists, “Don’t settle for a candidate that does not stand up for the sanctity of life.”

And a visit to speak with members of the Family Leader, a group that opposes abortion and rights for same-sex couples, was cut short when students from Grinnell College showed up to protest carrying signs that read “My body, my choice” and “Have my gaybee.”

St. Paul Cathedral. Source: Wikipedia

Minnesota’s Catholic bishops sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Thursday urging her department to drop a mandate on health insurance companies to cover birth control as part of their health plans.

The bishops argue that entities like Catholic Charities would have to offer insurance plans to their employees that offer coverage for contraceptives or else stop providing health benefits to employees.“While we support providing access to those services which can truly prevent disease or disability for woman such as pap smears and mammograms, we join other persons of good will who strenuously object to mandatory coverage for contraceptives and sterilization procedures,” the bishops wrote in the letter (PDF).

In August, the Obama administration announced that it would mandate that private health insurance cover women’s health care services such as cancer screenings, domestic violence support and birth control. The Catholic Church believes that birth control methods other than the rhythm method are sinful.

The bishops said the rule would “require taxpayers and providers to act against deeply-held convictions regarding the sanctity of life, as the promotion and provision of drugs like “Ella” (ulipristal acetate) and other abortifacient agents are enabled by this mandate.”

Coverage of abortion services is not included in the mandate. Calling drugs like Ella abortifacients is not the legal definition; they don’t actually cause abortions. However, as Christianity Today noted, the Catholic Church and other conservative Christians view the drug as abortion-inducing from a moral perspective.

The bishops also object to the current “conscience clause” in the mandate.

A religious organization is exempt from the mandate so long as it “has as the inculcation of religious values as its purpose, primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets, and primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets.”

The bishops worry that religious charities would either have to provide health coverage that offers birth control or opt not to cover their employees at all.

“By exempting only those who employ and/or serve persons of the same religious tradition from its mandates, Catholic health care providers—the safety net for many of our marginalized sisters and brothers—cannot enjoy the exception without abandoning our mission, to the significant detriment of those in need.”

“Requiring Catholic individuals and institutions to pay for and provide abortion drugs and contraceptives contrary to Catholic teaching in the name of ‘reproductive autonomy’ is an unprecedented attack on the cherished liberties of religious and associational freedom,” said Jason Adkins, executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the Roman Catholic Church in Minnesota.

Minnesota’s Catholic bishops are the latest in a long list of Catholic institutions that have spoken out against the policy, as have Catholic hospitals. At least 18 Catholic institutions of higher learning have come out against the rule as well as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

But, as our sister site the Florida Independent recently reported, not all Catholics agree with the hierarchy. In fact, some see the exception for religious institutions as dangerous for women.

“In allowing religious institutions to refuse to include contraceptive services in the health insurance plans they offer their employees, the Obama administration has once again sided with the Catholic bishops over the needs of women and their families,” said Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice. “The multi-billion dollar Catholic health care industry has a lot of influence with this administration, influence that it has now used to allow religious institutions to ride roughshod over the needs of their workers. Not only that, it ignores the consciences of those who decide that to use a modern method of family planning is what is best for them and their families.”

In fact, recent polling suggests that most Catholic women could benefit from the mandate. A poll released in April showed that only 2 percent of sexually active women followed Catholic teaching on birth control. Ninety-eight percent of Catholic women have used some form of birth control that is banned by the Church.

A fund created by the South Dakota Legislature in 2005 to defend a controversial anti-abortion bill introduced that year is largely bankrolled by out-of-state donors, one of whom claims to own businesses that belong to Jesus, reports the Argus Leader.

The Life Protection Subfund was initially created in anticipation of legal challenges to a law that, among other provisions, requires a doctor to tell a woman who is about to have an abortion she “has an existing relationship with that unborn human being and that the relationship enjoys protection under the United States Constitution and under the laws of South Dakota.”

The law is being challenged by Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota. This month, an appeals court overturned the district court’s previous ruling that the “existing relationship” provision was unconstitutional but agreed to strike down another provision that required doctors to tell patients that women who have abortions are more likely to commit suicide.

Now the Subfund is being used to defend this year’s currently-blocked anti-abortion-rights bill that mandates a 72-hour waiting period for abortion seekers and requires counseling at a crisis pregnancy center. According to funding data provided to The American Independent by Paul Kinsman, commissioner of the South Dakota Bureau of Administration, which oversees the Protect Life Subfund, the fund currently contains $63,387.04.

About $12,000 of that $63,000 was carried over from 2006 donations ranging from $5 to $2,000, half of which were from South Dakota residents or companies. In total, South Dakotans paid for about two-thirds of what was in the fund in 2006.

As of Sept. 26, about $48,000 in donations have gone to the Subfund in 2011. Two-thirds of those donations have come from six other states: Colorado (two donations), Massachusetts, Minnesota, Ohio, North Dakota (two donations) and Texas. The majority of those funds were donated by individuals, except for Patrick Davis Consulting in Colorado ($100), the Gerard Health Foundation LLC in Massachusetts ($2,500) and the North Dakota branch of the Knights of Columbus ($100).

The largest contribution – $25,000 — came from just one source, married couple Joseph and Cynthia Brinck.

From the Leader:

Only one Joe Brinck is listed in Ohio phone directories, and he is CEO of Stelter and Brinck LTD, a manufacturer of industrial process heat equipment and president of Superior Thermal Ltd., a manufacturer’s representative agency selling industrial-gas burners and controls, according to company websites.

Joe Brinck also is on the board of directors of an organization he founded, Ruah Woods. Its mission is to restore family and renew the culture using Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, according to the organization’s website.

Under Joe Brinck’s biography on the site, he states, “My businesses belong to Jesus, and we state so in our corporate minutes and our mission and vision statements. We use our businesses to evangelize our employees, customers and suppliers. We use the profits to support pro-life organizations.”

Even though the money in the Subfund does not come close to covering the state’s court costs -– according to the Argus Leader, the South Dakota attorney general’s office estimates legal challenges to this year’s anti-abortion-rights law could cost between $2 million and $4 million -– the attorney general has not dipped into the Subfund because of help from anti-abortion-rights organizations such as Alpha Center, a CPC in Sioux Falls. And even though the money has yet to be used, the existence of the fund remains controversial.

Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) sent a scathing fundraising letter to supporters complaining about the 2011 legislative session and blaming Republican leadership for not pressuring Gov. Mark Dayton to sign anti-abortion legislation.

Politics in Minnesota’s Paul Demko notes that MCCL President Leo LaLonde went after House Speaker Kurt Zellers and Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, both of whom are Republicans. The letter notes that MCCL’s finances are at an all-time low.

“I am going to be brutally honest,” LaLonde wrote. “I am devastated by the fact that not only were we unsuccessful in enacting any new pro-life laws this session, but we lost an existing pro-life policy for the first time since Roe V. Wade legalized abortion on demand!”

LaLonde criticized Republicans for the group’s legislative failures.

“[We] felt confident that House and Senate leaders would insist that at least some of our protective measures would be included in the final budget,” he said. “Senate Majority Leader Koch and Speaker of the House Zellers quickly struck a deal with Gov. Dayton, and in the blink of an eye all five pro-life measures that has been passed by nearly two-thirds, veto-proof margin during the legislative session were negotiated away.”

He added, “The Republican leaders lost sight of what is truly at stake—the lives of innocent human beings.”

The letter asked supporters for donations because MCCL is struggling financially.

“The uncertainty of the economy has not been kind to MCCL. Donations are down,” the letter reads. MCCL also said that they spent a lot of money in the 2011 legislative session: ”Our coffers are at an all-time low-will you help us?”