Abortion is still in the healthcare bill. What are pro-lifers doing about it?

Posted on October 15, 2009 by KHernandez

Not holding back, that’s for sure. If any of the current healthcare bills pass as proposed, it will be the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade, according to National Right to Life Committee.

Many pro-life groups have put the rest of their agendas on hold to focus solely on healthcare. Several organizations formed the Stop the Abortion Mandate coalition in the summer, which held a historical webcast with 19 pro-life leaders and over 36,000 activists. The Family Research Council built on that success and had another webcast a week later with over 70,000 participants.

CatholicVote’s action center CatholicAction parodied a Hollywood video/PSA that had celebrities endorsing current healthcare reform proposals. We just love the spirit of CatholicVote ads and the creative genius behind their work.

The Susan B. Anthony List created a great video to show that politicians are just hiding behind the Hyde Amendment when they say that abortion isn’t included in healthcare legislation. In reality, the Hyde Amendment, which has to be renewed every year, doesn’t even apply to healthcare funds, only Medicaid.

Americans United for Life president Charmaine Yoest has a great column in today’s Wall Street Journal entitled “Tax Dollars Shouldn’t Fund Abortion.” She talks about how current legislation would be breaking over 30 years worth of the government not funding elective abortion. Healthcare reform, as it stands, is a radical departure from the status quo.

AUL also released a fantastic short video calling out elected officials, including President Obama, for deceiving Americans on whether or not abortion is included in healthcare.

And Freedom2Care, the coalition of groups that want conscience protections for doctors who decline to perform or refer for abortions, are focusing on the point of view of healthcare professionals. Results from an online survey reveal startling news: 95% of faith-based physicians agreed, “I would rather stop practicing medicine altogether than be Dr. Sandy Christiansen forced to violate my conscience.”

While current healthcare proposals would flood the already overloaded healthcare system in America with millions more patients, all the while forcing doctors to choose between their morals or their profession, how can President Obama possibly expect Americans to receive quality and timely care if his policies will force many doctors to quit?

Several pro-life leaders all got on their webcams recently to show a united front against abortion coverage in healthcare reform. At such a crucial time in the history of our nation and in the fight to protect the unborn, these leaders are showing that we all must get involved and do it now.

What can you do? Contact your Member of Congress and tell you don’t want government dollars paying for abortions. Tell them abortion is not healthcare. And tell them you don’t want your doctor forced out of the practice of medicine.

US Bishops: Ready to Oppose Healthcare If Principles Aren’t Met

Posted on October 8, 2009 by KHernandez

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USSCB) made it crystal clear today that current healthcare legislation does NOT mean their concerns of: 1) making sure government funds do not pay for abortions and 2) that conscience rights are protected.

It gets better.

The bishops say in this new letter that they will continue to work with Congress but -

“If final legislation does not meet our principles, we will have no choice but to oppose the bill.”

The USSCB has always advocated for some type of healthcare reform since Catholic moral teachings say that physical health is a gift entrusted to us by God. Here’s what the Catechism says:

2288: We must take reasonable care of [life and physical health], taking into account the needs of others and the common good. Concern for the health of its citizens requires that society help in the attainment of living-conditions that allow them to grow and reach maturity: food and clothing, housing, health care, basic education, employment, and social assistance. [emphasis mine]

But the killing of the unborn come above anything else, as it should. Abortion is a grave moral evil and making healthcare out to be a moral right, which many have done, should never include the government funding of such an act.

The Bishops aren’t fooled by the clever rhetoric of the Obama Administration and the phony compromises put forth by pro-abortion Members of Congress.

See the full letter from the bishops here: www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/2009-10-08-healthcare-letter-congress.pdf.

Gibbs Hasn’t Gotten the Memo

Posted on October 8, 2009 by KHernandez

Gibbs photo At the daily press briefing yesterday, Fred Lucas of CNSNews.com asked President Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, about abortion funding in healthcare reform:

Lucas: Thanks, Robert. It’s a question on health care, actually; two questions. First, in a letter to senators last week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that, quoting, “So far the health reform bills considered in the committee, including the new Senate Finance Committee bill, have not met the President’s challenge of barring the use of federal dollars for abortion.” Is that statement wrong?

MR. GIBBS: Well, I don’t want to get me in trouble at church, but I would mention there’s a law that precludes the use of federal funds for abortion that isn’t going to be changed in these health care bills.

L:ucas: There have been, though, several amendments that would explicitly bar abortions, that would therefore reject it, some of those amendments by Democrats –

MR. GIBBS: Again, there’s a fairly well documented federal law that prevents it.

Gibbs is either blissfully ignorant or is outright being deceptive. There have been a slew of stories on how abortion is paid for through the current proposals of healthcare reform legislation. The Associated Press, TIME Magazine, and FactCheck.org, just to name a few, have all confirmed the government will fund abortions and that the Hyde Amendment does not pertain to healthcare reform.

The Susan B. Anthony List explains how politicians, and now Obama’s main spokesman, are hiding behind the Hyde Amendment when asked about abortion funding in the healthcare bill through this short and humorous video.

And Stop the Abortion Mandate has a chart that clearly shows the Hyde Amendment only applies to funds allocated to Medicaid through the Health & Human Services Department, not through the new revenue stream that is created by the healthcare reform proposals.

And National Right to Life and LifeNews.com also clearly explain why Hyde does not pertain to healthcare reform.

Robert Gibbs needs to be truthful about the government funding abortions in healthcare. But then he’d have to face the huge majority of Americans who oppose funding abortion with government money.

Born Alive Case Goes to Trial This Week in Florida

Posted on October 7, 2009 by KHernandez

A horrific story unfolded in a Miami abortion clinic back in the summer of 2006 and this week, one of the women involved in the botched abortion is going to trial.

Here’s what happened – On July 19, 2006, 18-year-old Sycloria Williams, went to the GYN Diagnostic Center abortion facility in Hialeah, outside Miami, for an later term abortion. Laminaria was inserted into her cervix and she came back the next day for the abortion. Instead, she delivered Shanice, a 23-week-old premature baby, alive. Two eyewitnesses have testified the baby was alive and moving like a normal baby would move. Sycloria tells her story firsthand here. Belkis Gonzalez

That’s when the owner of the abortion clinic took matters into their own hands. Belkis Gonzalez came into the room about 5 minutes after Shanice was born and cut the umbilical cord, put her in a red biohazard bag with bleach and threw her in the trash.

The same day, an anonymous tipster called the police to report a baby had been killed. On July 22^nd, police obtained a search warrant but could not find the baby at the clinic. On July 29^th, the police received another anonymous call to say the baby was back inside the clinic and that when police had first come to search, clinic workers threw the bag with the baby in it on top of the roof to avoid detection. The police found the baby’s decomposed body this time in a place where they had previously searched.

Sick.

Jill Stanek, who has followed this case from the beginning, reported on her blog in March 2008 that the Miami-Dade autopsy report said the Shanice died naturally and of “extreme prematurity.” (Right – put bleach over anyone’s head and stuff it in a bag and call it a natural death….)

The mother had a change of heart after the baby’s delivery and hired lawyers from the Thomas More Society to help her press charges, which included getting a second autopsy. Those results were incredibly damaging to the abortion clinic and included major points that would indicate manslaughter:

7. The actions of unlicensed clinic staff probably accelerated and/or contributed to the death of the newborn.

10. It is most likely that neglectful actions around the time of birth of newborn and prematurity were the significant factors that resulted in this newborn’s death.

NBC in Miami reported today that “Belkis Gonzalez has been charged with unlicensed healthcare resulting in death and evidence tampering in the July 2006 death of the newborn at a GYN Diagnostic Center.” She faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if found guilty.

But pro-lifers and critics are calling for murder charges to be levied against Gonzalez. And LifeNews.com reports that “The abortion practitioner in the case, Pierre Renelique, saw the Board of Medicine revoke his medical license in February.”

We’ll keep a close watch on this trial.

Think this is the first case of a baby born alive and abortion clinic workers going to extreme measures to make sure the abortion is carried out, even after birth?

Last year, filmmaker Ángel Manuel Soto Vázquez made a heart-wrenching short film about another instance where a baby was born alive in Florida clinic. 22 Weeks is about Angele, a woman who gave birth to a baby boy in the toilet of an abortion clinic after a botched abortion.

The baby was born alive and the staff refused to provide medical aid, breaking the Born Alive Infant Protection Act law that sought to protect those babies born alive. President Barack Obama, as a Senator in Illinois, voted against this legislation 4 times by the way.

Congressman Stupak – A Thorn in Pelosi’s Side

Posted on October 6, 2009 by KHernandez

Congressman Bart Stupak, a Catholic Democrat from Michigan, deserves accolades for holding his ground on an issue that the majority of Americans oppose: having the government pay for abortions through healthcare reform.

Congressman Bart Stupak

William McGurn nails it in his column today, suggesting that Stupak is the new Bob Casey problem for the Democratic party. Bob Casey, the late pro-life governor of Pennsylvania, was famously denied a speaking slot at the 1992 Democratic convention, while the party easily found slots for pro-choice Republicans. McGurn notes that the “moment helped tar the Democrats as a party of abortion intolerance—a problem the party thought it put behind it in 2006 when the governor’s son, Democrat Robert Casey Jr., was elected senator as a pro-life Democrat.”

But party leaders are making the mistake all over again and now, “Just like Gov. Casey before him, Mr. Stupak’s stand for life—in this case, his fight against tax dollars for abortion—is making him a thorn in the side of a Democratic president.”

Here’s the kicker – remember President Obama’s speech at Notre Dame earlier this year (yes, I’d rather forget it happened as well)? The President almost convincingly urged everyone to find “common ground” to “reduce the number of women seeking abortions.”

Mr. President, where’s the ‘common ground’ when your party and its leaders are about to force Americans to pay for abortions through massive healthcare reform?

Rep. Stupak is fighting to get an explicit exclusion of abortion written into healthcare legislation but his party won’t even let him bring his amendment to the floor for a vote, which stands in stark contrast to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s own words that “no Member of Congress should be silenced on the floor.”

Now Stupak is making sure that Speaker Pelosi and President Obama know he’s serious:

Last week Mr. Stupak, 24 other Democrats and 158 Republicans sent the speaker a letter asking her to make good on that pledge. Members of the House, they said, should have the “right to vote their conscience on an amendment offered by Congressmen Stupak and [Joe] Pitts [R., Pa.] regarding government funding for abortion.”

Does he have enough votes to get the exclusion written into the bill? McGurn says that no ones knows yet if he’s got the votes to block the healthcare bill if he’s not allowed to offer his amendment but you have to believe he’s close – both Speaker Pelosi and President Obama have personally reached out to him.

Bart Stupak is truly a hero – standing up against his own party and fighting for those who have no voice. He wants healthcare reform to pass, just not at the expense of the government paying for abortions.

Go here to send a message of encouragement to Rep. Stupak.

Hiding Behind the Hyde Amendment

Posted on October 5, 2009 by KHernandez

The Susan B. Anthony List has taken a creative and somewhat humorous approach in attempting to explain why the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits government money from funding some abortions, does NOT apply to current healthcare proposals. Many elected officials are hiding behind the Hyde Amendment when questioned by their constituents or the media on whether or not abortion will be funded by government money through healthcare.

In reality, the Hyde Amendment is completely sidestepped in current healthcare proposals and does not apply, which opens up an entire new source of money in the government that will go to funding abortions.

Here’s a 70 second explanation:

Abortion a Stumbling Block for Healthcare Reform?

Posted on October 2, 2009 by admin

No one fooled by Capps Amendment…Rep. Bart Stupak holding his ground…Dems working on 2^nd phony amendment…

Whenever the liberal Dems are pressed on whether or not abortion is funded by government dollars through healthcare, they often point back to the Capps Amendment in the House bill, which they say makes sure gov dollars aren’t spent on elective abortions. Of course, unless they are Nancy Pelosi, who doublespeaks when asked about it this summer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOMDyvVJad0.

Fortunately for the majority of Americans who don’t want the government to fund abortions through healthcare, Congressman Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan, is holding his ground against President Obama and Nancy Pelosi. Stupak is pushing for an explicit exclusion of abortion to be written into healthcare legislation – and if he doesn’t get it, he says he’s got 40 votes against healthcare reform, something that Pelosi just can’t afford.

US News & World Report has a great Q&A with Stupak on his recent phone call with President Obama on abortion funding in healthcare. The gist is that Stupak is holding his ground and refuses to concede that the Capps Amendment prohibits gov money from paying for abortion.

So what to do now?

Well, Rep. Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and who has a pro-choice voting record even Nancy Pelosi would be envious of, wants to come up with a “compromise” with some of the more moderate members of Stupak’s coalition (read: former-pro-lifer-but-still-portrayed-as-pro-lifer Rep. Tim Ryan). He wants to strip away Stupak’s support bit by bit till he has the votes needed to pass a phony compromise, claim victory and hand the bill over to Pelosi. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, admitted as much.

Doug Johnson, the legislative director at National Right to Life, blows up the rhetoric once again:

”Pelosi and Waxman are working on cosmetic changes to the Capps Amendment, which they will then try to peddle as an even-more-generous ‘compromise’ by the pro-abortion side (but which in reality will put the federal government into the elective abortion business in both the public plan and the premium subsidy program).”

Johnson also says that even if the House members adopt the new Waxman language, it doesn’t alleviate the concern of abortion funding found in the public option. In fact, the government option “problem is very important and separate and distinct from the premium-subsidy problem.”

TIME Magazine, the independent FactCheck.org and the Associated Press, among others, have all confirmed that abortion will be paid for using government dollars with the current healthcare plan.

For more info on the Capps Amendment and other talking points, see www.StopTheAbortionMandate.com.

Pregnancy Resource Centers Are Key to Women’s Health

Posted on October 1, 2009 by admin

Yesterday, the Family Research Council, in partnership with Care Net and Heartbeat International, released a first-ever-of-its-kind report on the accomplishments and roles of the thousands of Pregnancy Resource Centers (PRCs) in this country and abroad. A Passion to Serve highlights the vital services that these pregnancy centers have provided to communities across the country over the past 40 years. It’s a story that has yet to be told.

PRCs, or as they are also referred to – Crisis Pregnancy Centers, have been under attack for years by the liberals in Congress, Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities for seemingly giving out false information to women and their families about abortion, when in fact, PRCs are the only ones giving out complete information about abortion, including all of the mental and physical side effects included when a woman chooses abortion.

Dr. Sandy Christiansen, Member Christian Medical Association

PRCs care for the whole woman herself, and her baby, and don’t look at her as a paycheck. They are compassionate and provide an array services to help women in need – ultrasounds, STD testing and referral, counseling, parenting classes, material assistance to mothers and abortion recovery programs.

The joint report found that:

• 29 of every 30 people engaged in pregnancy work are volunteers.
• Nearly 700 PRCs are equipped with ultrasounds that deliver the service at little or no cost to the women.
• PRCs assist an average of 5,500 Americans daily with sexuality and pregnancy-related concerns.
• Parenting classes are offered at 70% of PRCs.
• PRCs provide medically referenced literature on prenatal development, STDs, and physical and physiological risks of abortion that have been reviewed by national-level experts in the fields of medicine, psychiatry and psychology.
• Option Line, Care Net’s national 24-7 pregnancy help line, averages 20,000 contacts per month and its website averages 800,000 to 1 million visitors per year.
• The centers raise at least $200 million a year, with more than 90% of those funds coming from private charitable giving.

Dr. Joxel Garcia, Former Assistant Secretary of Health, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services

The Family Research Council held a press conference and luncheon yesterday in Washington, D.C. to unveil the report. Putting a face on the work of the PRCs were 3 women in attendance with personal stories.

Shalaine, a 22-year-old, got pregnant unexpectedly and had heard about a crisis pregnancy center. She was encouraged to have an abortion by her boyfriend and family but received compassionate counseling at Pregnancy Centers of Central Virginia and once she saw the ultrasound, she decided to keep her baby boy, Gabriel.

Kendra was 19 when she became pregnant. She had her child and sought parenting classes from a local pregnancy center, one that saved the life of her niece when her sister unexpectedly became pregnant and needed support.

And Mallory, a sophomore in college with a smile that lit up the room, was conceived by rape. She was given up for adoption after her mother went to a pregnancy center, where she was counseled throughout her pregnancy and eventually was aided in finding an adoption agency.

Describing herself as a person of purpose, Hitt said she thinks she survived for a reason.

“I know there’s a reason why I made it through and I wasn’t aborted,” Hitt said.
-CNS News, 10/1/09

Mallory - a woman who was saved by a Pregnancy Resource Center

See the full report here: http://www.apassiontoserve.com

Anti-Catholic Health Bill Emerging from Baucus Committee

Posted on October 1, 2009 by admin

For many months now, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) has worked to position his approach to health reform as less strident and more reasonable than the radical and imposing, big government approach many of his liberal Democrat colleagues have proposed. Indeed, Senator Baucus has been consistent in his opposition to the government option, stating health care will not pass if it is included. Senator Baucus’ opposition to the public option has resulted in media coverage positioning him as a more centrist and reasoned player in the health reform debate.

Earlier this week, the public option went down to defeat in the Senate Finance Committee, Chaired by Baucus, not once, but twice. Oh, but by the way, Senator Schumer says the far left Democrats have only to begun to fight for the public option — which is no option at all — it will lead to huge deficits, rationing of health care and bring immense bureaucratic power to the federal government, where accountants and economists will make medical decisions not doctors and health care professionals.

But we digress. We should not be fooled again by this idea that anything short of the public option is “centrist” or “a reasonable compromise.” In fact, we only have to look to yesterday’s Senate Finance Committee vote on Amendments that would have taken abortion and assisted suicide out of health care. In fact, what is a reasonable question to ask is why abortion and assisted suicide are even being discussed in the debate surrounding health reform. It is amazing how far we have come when politicians can suggest the taking of life is somehow part of health care. And, to top it off, the Committee also rejected Amendments which would have prevented pro-life doctors and medical professionals from being forced by the federal government to provide abortion services.

A report from today’s Washington Times http://bit.ly/upWc3 accurately captures what the Senate Finance Committee rejected:

Two abortion-related proposals from Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, would have restricted public or private health plans that include abortion coverage and would have strengthened protections for health care providers from discrimination if they refuse to provide an abortion.

Because the government may be facilitating private and possibly public insurance coverage through a government health care exchange, opponents of abortion have raised concern that taxpayers would be funding abortions. They hoped to make permanent the so-called Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding of abortions but must be renewed annually.

A second proposal would have banned any local government, agency or health plan from discriminating against health care providers who refuse to provide abortions. It also would have directed the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services to collect and investigate discrimination complaints.

The failure of these votes clearly demonstrates that Mr. Baucus’ bill is no “centrist” bill and is certainly no “reasonable compromise.” In countless polls, the American people do not support government funding of abortion. Nor does the public support federal mandates forcing doctors to provide abortion services. The Baucus bill is emerging as simply another radically far left, big government attempt to dole out tax dollars to the abortion industry and impose abortion on demand paid for by the federal government, meaning the American taxpayer. This move is essentially a pay back to an abortion industry that has overhwhelming funded many of the liberal politicians leading the charge for “health reform.” Indeed, much of what the radically pro-abortion and unpopular so called Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which President Obama promised to the abortion industry http://bit.ly/CKSRz he would sign as one of his first acts as President, has been tucked into “health reform.”

We shall no longer mince words in this debate. What emerged yesterday in the Senate Finance Committee was an underhanded attack on Catholic teaching and Judeo-Christian values. In rejecting these reasonable Amendments, the Baucus bill seeks to diminish freedom and enhance the taking of innocent human life by funding abortion on demand, condoning euthanasia and forcing Catholic doctors and hospitals to be faced with either providing abortion services, shut down, change careers or risk law suits. Not so good for access to health care advocates when Catholic hospitals represent 12 plus percent of all US hospitals providing health care to hundreds of millions of Americans.

Not much “centrist” or ”compromising” about it. Let’s call the this for what it is — an anti-Catholic, anti-freedom bill which discriminates against the unborn, the elderly and Catholic, prolife doctors. The bill that is tracking its way to the Senate floor for a vote next week, is anathema to Catholicism and to the nation’s Judeo-Christian values.

Finally, SMS gives a shout out to Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) for his courage and support of the Hatch Amendments yesterday. Senator Conrad’s votes represent many Democrats in the Senate and House that feel abortion funding and forcing doctors to provide abortions have no place in the health care reform debate. We encourage Catholics and prolifers to call Senator Conrad and thank him for his support of the Hatch Amendments. Phone: (202) 224-2043

Some key facts:

Mores Americans are prolife:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/118399/More-Americans-Pro-Life-Than-Pro-Choice-First-Time.aspx

Americans want abortion fuding out of any health care plan:

http://bit.ly/1aJkdr

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