The following is an excerpt from Blaze Media’s Capitol Hill Brief email newsletter:

In case you missed it, BlazeTV’s Allie Stuckey made quite the pro-life stir at a House Oversight Committee hearing on state-level abortion laws on Thursday. She told the committee, in no uncertain terms, that abortion is indeed the act of “tearing a child apart limb by limb.” At one point, a Democratic committee member confronted her with the age-old canard that pro-lifers supposedly don’t care about children after they are born, but then cut the witness off and reclaimed the time once Stuckey began to challenge the underlying premise of the question.

At another point, she was cut off by the chair during her answer about whether or not there were any good reasons to procure an abortion, but was allowed to finish after protests from Republican members. She then issued a challenge to the hearing room: “Can anyone on the pro-abortion side tell me a situation outside of a defenseless child inside the womb in which it is morally justifiable to kill someone simply because they’re not wanted?”

Just before Stuckey left the hearing, Debbie Wasserman Schultz raised a question about Stuckey’s testimony, noting that she doesn’t have a professional scientific or medical background. The witness responded, "It says something when I, the one without the scientific or medical background, am the only one to give specifics on what an abortion procedure actually is."

Video of the full hearing is available here:

A federal district judge in New York has ruled against a Trump administration rule meant to protect the conscience rights of health care workers.

In a 147-page decision issued on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer found the administration's "conscience rule" unconstitutional because it uses the withholding of federal funds as an enforcement mechanism and ruled that the department of Health and Human Services acted "acted arbitrarily and capriciously" in promulgating it. The ruling also claims that the department was invoking powers that weren't granted to it by Congress via federal law.

The measure was supposed to go into effect on November 22; however, Engelmayer — an Obama appointee — decided to vacate it "in its entirety."

The Trump administration announced the rule back in May as an effort to protect the rights of people and institutions in the health care field who have moral objections to certain procedures like abortion, the provision of contraception, or “assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing.”

“This rule ensures that healthcare entities and professionals won’t be bullied out of the health care field because they decline to participate in actions that violate their conscience, including the taking of human life,” reads a statement from OCR Director Roger Severino at the time of introduction. “Protecting conscience and religious freedom not only fosters greater diversity in healthcare, it’s the law.”

The rule's creation stemmed from a 2017 executive order from President Donald Trump directing his administration to “to vigorously enforce Federal law’s robust protections for religious freedom.”

However, critics of the rule claim that it makes patients vulnerable to being denied care arbitrarily because of a health care provider's personal preferences.

"Trust is the cornerstone of the physician-patient relationship," Leana Wen, former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said when the group sued to stop the rule back in June. "No one should have to worry if they will get the right care or information because of their providers' personal beliefs."

A statement from an HHS spokesperson to Blaze Media said that the department "together with [the Department of Justice], is reviewing the court’s opinion and so will not comment on the pending litigation at this time.”

I’ve always voted Republican because Republicans stood for life. Before I began really studying the political parties and our representatives, I remember getting frequent mailers touting the pro-life record of this or that Republican.

As I learned more, I realized the cynicism with which some of those Republicans asked for my vote. Living in a rural area, I was targeted as probably pro-life, and the mailers were sent to get me to vote on the single issue. Though I have had serious doubts about the other policies of Republicans who represent me, they are mostly OK on life issues, and certainly none of them could be referred to as pro-abortion.

When watching the president’s re-election kickoff in Orlando, I noticed his strong pro-life words and pride in his party.

“Virtually every top Democrat also now supports taxpayer-funded abortion right up to the moment of birth – ripping babies straight from the mothers’ womb. Leading Democrats have even opposed measures to prevent the execution of children after birth. You saw that in Virginia.

“Republicans believe that every life is a sacred gift from God. That is why I have asked Congress to prohibit extreme late-term abortions.”

But unfortunately, it is not true that all “Republicans believe that every life is a sacred gift from God.” Let’s take a look at Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont.

According to CNS News:

Last week, Vermont Governor Phil Scott signed H. 57, a bill affirming abortion as a “fundamental human right,” and which would allow abortion up to the moment of birth.

The bill states, “The State of Vermont recognizes the fundamental right of every individual who becomes pregnant to choose to carry a pregnancy to term, to give birth to a child, or to have an abortion.”

It also states, “A fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus shall not have independent rights under Vermont law.”

The so-called Republican governor of Vermont calls the killing of a child a fundamental human right, and he proudly signed this bill into law — one of the most sweeping and radical abortion bills out there.

Upon signing, Scott said, “Like many Vermonters, I have consistently supported a woman’s right to choose, which is why today I signed H.57 into law. This legislation affirms what is already allowable in Vermont – protecting reproductive rights and ensuring those decisions remain between a woman and her health care provider. I know this issue can be polarizing, so I appreciate the respectful tone and civility from all sides throughout this discussion.”

But what respect, if any, is the governor entitled to?

It’s been a constant struggle within the Republican Party for pro-life forces to win internal battles. This president has consistently been strongly pro-life, and this helps account for the resurgence of pro-life vigor within the nation. But it hasn’t necessarily done the same within the Republican Party.

It’s not like Scott signed some non-consequential bill. This bill denies protection for any human being within the womb, at any time, and allows for the most barbaric and torturous means of execution, even within moments of birth. Why doesn’t the governor figure out first if these executions warrant civility and respectful tones?

The Republican Party, in order to remain consistent, ought to censure or otherwise purge such radical pro-aborts from the party if we are ever to have the moral high ground. There is no evidence that Phil Scott is a Republican, other than the fact that he calls himself one. He touts that he is a fiscal hawk, yet a quick glance at his “fiscal hawkishness” shows a weak, weak game of promises made, promises broken, familiar to every conservative who ever tried to figure out what the Republican Party actually stands for.

And the governor of Vermont is not alone. Throughout the Republican Party, pro-aborts continue to try to knock the pro-lifers down and out of existence.

But there is a new wave of thinking. The acknowledgement that the child within the womb has rights given to him by God, and not by government, as the quintessential “fundamental human right,” is what this nation was built upon. Our Declaration of Independence declares, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

To our Founders, it was obvious that the Creator bestowed upon us the right to life. It cannot be taken away by a vicious and twisted government, whether Republican or Democrat.

It is sad that what the president said about Republicans is not entirely, unmistakably true. It is wishful thinking that the party could actually say without equivocation that we stand for the fundamental right to life, but with people like Governor Scott claiming he’s one of us, we certainly cannot.

Now that Donald Trump’s nominees have shifted the makeup of the Supreme Court, we’re starting to see what the next legal challenges to Roe v. Wade might look like.

Last week, federal judges blocked two Kentucky pro-life bills: one banning abortion based on sex, race, or a disability diagnosis (otherwise known as eugenics) and the other a heartbeat law. Also last week, a federal judge blocked an Ohio law banning dilation and evacuation (D&E) abortion procedures. Indiana’s eugenics abortion ban was blocked by a federal judge and is still waiting to hear back from the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, other states are passing and considering new pro-life legislation at an impressive pace. Mississippi recently enacted a heartbeat law, banning most abortions after the fetal heartbeat can be detected, at about six weeks of pregnancy. Iowa put one in place last May. One is working its way through the Georgia legislature, along with others in Tennessee and Missouri. Utah’s governor recently signed a bill banning abortion based on a Down syndrome diagnosis, while a similar Arkansas measure is working its way up in Little Rock. A dilation and evacuation ban bill is being deliberated in North Dakota.

And, naturally, whenever a new pro-life bill becomes law, the abortion industry mounts a new legal offensive. When you’ve got multiple legal challenges in different circuits, you increase the chance that there’s going to be disagreement among the courts and therefore increase the likelihood that the issue will be taken up by the Supreme Court.

Between the number of heartbeat laws, anti-eugenics abortion bills, and D&E bans, the real question is which issue will get the chance to chip away at Roe v. Wade first.

With Justice Brett Kavanaugh now sitting in the seat vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the unborn Americans’ odds at the Supreme Court are better than they’ve been in decades, though some serious pro-life concerns about Chief Justice John Roberts are now cropping up.

At National Review, David French makes the argument that now is the time to bombard the judicial branch with legal challenges to Roe v. Wade like these: “it’s time to throw down the gauntlet, declare to the world (and to the Court) that the era of incrementalism is over, and show that the people are ready to embrace life.”

The number of new laws passing may well signal that bombardment is under way.