As the health care debate rages in the Senate today, a group of 60 plus Catholics have gathered in Senator Bob Casey’s office to pray that he will stand firm and vote against any heatlh care bill that lacks a strong pro-life Amendment such as Nelson-Hatch, modeled after the Stupak Amendment. CBN is on the story here.
While this group prays, the Susan B. Anthony List has launched a new advertisement invoking the words of the late former Governor Bob Casey, Sr to remind son what Father would do.
UPDATED: Senate tables the Nelson-Hatch amendment 54-45,(Dem Senators Conrad, Bayh, Casey, Pryor, Dorgan, and Nelson voted in favor). Statements for the media from pro-life leaders are below. And the Family Research Council is holding a news conference call @ 6:05pm ET on the vote – call 866-939-3921 .
STATEMENTS FROM PRO-LIFE LEADERS ON THE VOTE TO TABLE THE NELSON-HATCH AMENDMENT
December 8, 2009
Tony Perkins
President of Family Research Council Action
“In rejecting the Nelson-Hatch amendment, pro-abortion Senators have broken the three decade long truce over government funding of abortion and have demonstrated they would rather have mandate federal funding for abortion than enact ‘health care reform.’
Wendy Wright
President, Concerned Women for America
“Nelson-Hatch is a reasonable amendment that does one thing: ensures federal funds are not spent on elective abortions. What the government funds, we get more of. Without this amendment, the bill will violate two of Pres. Obama’s promises: that the bill will not fund abortion and that he will work to reduce abortions. Since abortion costs less than delivery of a baby, it is not unlikely that bureaucrats, facing pressure to reduce costs, will sign off on paying for abortion but not for the health care that pregnant women and their babies need. If the bill does not explicitly bar the funding of abortion, bureaucrats and activist judges will require federal funding of this deadly procedure. If more children are aborted, who will pay for this massive government entitlement when it balloons in 20 years?”
Douglas Johnson
Legislative Director, National Right to Life Committee
“The focus now shifts to the all-important cloture vote on the Reid bill itself, which is a 60-vote hurdle. Let the message be heard clearly across the land: Any senator who votes for cloture on Reid’s bill is voting to establish two big new federal programs that will subsidize abortion on demand.”
Charmaine Yoest
President, Americans United for Life Action
“A vote to table the amendment is a vote against the Nelson-Hatch-Casey amendment. A majority of Senators effectively endorsed the abortion lobby’s goal of mainstreaming abortion as health care. The Senate health care reform bill explicitly allows the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to include abortion coverage in the ‘community health insurance option,’ and allows federal subsidies to go to private insurance plans that include abortion coverage. In addition, the bill also requires that at least one private plan in each exchange provide coverage for all abortions. The Senate had the opportunity to follow the House’s lead in ensuring that federal dollars are not used to pay for abortions. Instead, the Senate chose to reject the Nelson-Hatch-Casey amendment and continue down the road towards unprecedented federal funding of abortion.”
Ashley Horne
Federal Issues Analyst, Focus on the Family Action
“Today, the U.S. Senate failed to protect the preborn and ignored the will of the people they represent. Although 67 percent of Americans oppose the use of federal money to pay for abortion in any government-run healthcare, Senators nevertheless rejected the Hatch-Nelson amendment. Their vote would compel Americans who have moral and religious objects to abortion – and who now make up the majority of the country – to fund it. This is what Thomas Jefferson described as ‘tyrannical.’ Focus on the Family continues to oppose the health care bill because it fails to protect the most vulnerable among us – the preborn. We will keep working diligently to ensure that this faulty legislation does not pass by giving a voice to the millions of Americans who oppose the use of federal funds to pay for abortion.”
Steven Ertelt
Editor and CEO, LifeNews.com
“Senators who opposed the Nelson amendment should be ashamed of themselves for hypocritically calling for ‘choice’ yet forcing Americans to pay for abortions through the health care bill. Their real agenda is exposed through their own votes — they want unlimited abortions throughout pregnancy for any reason funded by the American people. That’s not pro-choice, it is radically pro-abortion.”
Jennifer Giroux
Executive Director, One More Soul
“Senators think they can dress up abortion and call it ‘healthcare’ but today God fearing American tax-payers have now been forced to pay for an infant holocaust for the first time in our nation’s history.”
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Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) described the debate this afternoon in the Senate on the Nelson-Hatch Amendment, which makes sure the government doesn’t fund abortions, as “unusual.” Why? Because the debate is supposed to be about healthcare, not abortion, and certainly not about abortion funding, especially since it has been precedent for the past 30 years that the government does not fund elective abortion.
What’s the big deal? The abortion industry has a lot to gain if the government starts funding abortion, as Charmaine Yoest writes in her open letter to Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards today:
“This Senate health care bill is a bailout for the world’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. Their lobbying efforts are said to be about empowering women and advancing reproductive health but the bottom line is that Planned Parenthood needs the business.”
The Senate, by most accounts, will vote this afternoon on the Nelson-Hatch amendment. Have you called your Senator and told them to vote in favor of the Nelson amendment and against government funding of abortion?
Go HERE for contact info for your Senators.
Need talking points? Here are the main points we are using below. Feel free to send them to your family and friends and get the word out.
1) If the Senate healthcare bill is passes without Stupak or Nelson language, it will be the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade.
2) Government-Run Health Care = a bailout of the abortion industry, mandated government-funded abortion, and forcing Americans to subsidize abortions.
3) The bi-partisan Stupak-Pitts amendment and the Nelson-Hatch amendment do not change the status quo on abortion funding through the government; it IS the status quo. They both mirror the Hyde amendment which prevents the government from funding elective abortion.
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:
It’s important to remember that this fight is not over but sadly as expected the amendments to restrict public funding of abortion and conscience protection failed today in the Senate Finance Committee. There are more options in the Senate and pro lifers there plan to keep up this fight. On the House side, earlier this week 183 Members of Congress sent a bipartisan letter to Speaker Pelosi asking for a vote the Stupak-Pitts amendments.
Great coverage here by Steven Ertelt at LifeNews. http://www.lifenews.com/nat5521.html
“The Hatch nondiscrimination amendment failed by a vote of 13-10 with pro-abortion Sen. Olympia Snow, a Maine Republican, siding with Democrats on the panel to oppose the measure.
Sen. Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, joined Republicans in supporting the amendment.”
We are still hearing from Hill sources that today is the vote in the Senate Finance Committee on Senators Hatch (R-UT) and Enzi’s (R-WY) protect life Amendments to Senator Baucus’ (D-MT) anti-Catholic health care legislation. The legislation in its current form undermines Catholic teaching in its promotion of assisted suicide, its funding of abortion, and leaves open the likely possibility that a Doctor, Nurse or other Catholic/prolife medical professional would, by law, have to provide abortion services. While we encourage calls and emails into all members of the Senate Finance Committee, St. Michael understands people are busy. So, in the least please contact Senators Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) and tell them to vote YES on the Hatch and Enzi Amendments telling them that assisted suicide and government funding of abortion should not be in any health care bill.
Senator Blance Lincoln (D-AR) - 202-224-4843 email: http://lincoln.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) - (202) 224-2043 https://conrad.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm
Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) - (202) 224-5344
http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorSnowe.Email
This is a big week for Catholics and pro-lifers in our daily battle to defend life in the public square.
At some point this week, possibly today, Senators Hatch and Enzi will introduce a number of bills in the Senate Finance Committee that seek to keep abortion and assisted suicide out of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus’ (D-MT) health care bill.
Additionally, the Senators are expected to introduce an amendment allowing pro-life doctors, nurses and other health care practicioners to opt out of providing abortion and assisted suicide services based on their religious beliefs. A listing of the Amendments is below.
Unfortunately, liberal Democrats on the committee are likely to shoot down many of these Amendments, but they will be brought up again as the debate moves through the Senate and the House. Members of Congress are keeping a tally of phone calls coming in from constitutents so we need to keep emailing and calling our Senators and Representatives to tell them to keep abortion and assisted suicide out of health care.
Call the Capital Hill Switch Board today and ask to be transferred to your Senator. 202-224-3121 and tell them no to government funding of abortion and no to assisted suicide in health care- tell them abortion and assisted suicide should be kept out of health care reform. We can tell you from having worked on the Hill, these calls and emails matter.
Please stay tuned for regular updates on these issues here and also get involved at
http://www.realhealthcarerespectslife.com/
http://stoptheabortionmandate.com/
•Hatch #10 restores funding for abstinence education.
•Hatch #12 prohibits funding for assisted suicide and offers conscience protection to those who refuse to participate in assisted suicide.
•Hatch #13 mirrors the Hyde-Weldon conscience protections with regard to abortion.
•Hatch #14 prohibits funding abortion or plans that cover abortion. Also clarifies that it does not prohibit insurance providers from offering abortion coverage separate from the subsidized plan.
•Enzi #12 strikes Baucus abortion language and adds language prohibiting any federal government entity from requiring abortion coverage.
•Enzi #13 strikes Baucus abortion language and adds language prohibiting any federal funding for abortion or plans that cover abortion and allows individuals to purchase separate supplemental abortion coverage with non-federal funds.
•Enzi #14 strikes Baucus abortion language and adds language prevent overturning of state abortion laws.
•Enzi #15 strikes Baucus abortion language and adds language prohibiting state and local governments, health care providers and health plans that receive federal financial assistance from discriminating against entities on the basis of their refusal to perform and participate in specific surgical or medical procedures or provide certain pharmaceuticals.
