Bart Stupak’s Betrayal

For the Editors of St Michael Society, the shock over Bart Stupak’s betrayal this weekend has begun to turn into anger and grief. Its one thing to cave to pressures and intimidation but Stupak’s speech on the House floor sheds new light on the man. This was not a man who changed his vote because he was worn down by attacks. Bart Stupak’s speech on the House floor revealed a man, who in the end, decided to put the Democratic Party ahead the life of the unborn, the lives of women who will suffer from abortion, obedience to the bishops and sadly his faith. We need to pray for him and we must work to undo the damage he has done.

Here are the writings of respected voices on the topic:

Kathryn Jean Lopez:  

Unfortunately, if Bart Stupak truly wanted to ensure that human dignity was respected in this legislation, he wouldn’t have surrendered. But surrender he did — and then some, declaring the Democratic party the protectors of the unborn on the House floor last night.

The Democratic party is nothing of the sort — which is another reason no one who wanted to defeat the taxpayer funding of abortion in Obamacare should have expected a Stupak-led victory in this Washington environment. It’s the party that will never offend the abortion industry. It’s the party that owns partial-birth abortion.

William McGurn

By caving at the last hour, he discredited all who stood with him. (What does it say about Ohio’s Marcy Kaptur and Pennsylvania’s Chris Carney that they had already agreed to vote yes even before the fig leaf of the executive order had come through?) In addition to undermining an encouraging partnership with pro-lifers across the congressional aisle, Mr. Stupak signaled that, in the end, you can’t count on pro-life Democrats.

Susan B. Anthony List

Let me be clear: any representative, including Rep. Stupak, who votes for this healthcare bill can no longer call themselves ‘pro-life.’ The Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund will not endorse, or support in any capacity, any Member of Congress who votes for this bill in any future election. Now through Election Day 2010, these representatives will learn that votes have consequences. The SBA List Candidate Fund will work tirelessly to help defeat Members who support this legislation and make sure their constituents know exactly how they voted.

CWA

…in the 11th hour, he caved. He succumbed to the pressures of the most pro-abortion Administration in history just because they said they would write on a piece of paper that the federal government won’t fund abortion. It’s not even a law the President wrote. It’s not worth the Post-It note he wrote it on.

 Shame on you Bart Stupak. Shame on all the other Members who walked the plank with you. You all sold out and scorned millions of voters who trusted you and believed in you. 

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Healthcare Update and Photos

UPDATE1: The Executive Order will NOT work to stop government-funded abortion. Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life says:

“Once again, the proposal to address the problem of abortion funding in the health care bill through use of an executive order is a tacit acknowledgement that the bill as it stands is pro-abortion legislation. Both the President and the Speaker have repeatedly denied this stark fact.

Furthermore, the AUL legal team has concluded that an executive order is not an adequate fix to mitigate the Senate bill’s establishment of taxpayer-funded abortion.  For example, an executive order cannot prevent insurance companies that pay for abortions in the exchanges from receiving federal subsidies.

In addition, executive orders can be undone or modified as quickly as they are created. President Obama revoked the Mexico City Policy, through the use of an executive order, and thereby allowed federal tax dollars to finance organizations that provide abortions internationally for the first time in years.

This fact, coupled with the Administration’s repeated endorsement of the pro-abortion lobby’s agenda, force any reasonable person to conclude that this bill will clearly create the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded abortion in American history.”

A lot has happened in the past 24 hours on the healthcare front. The abortion talks collapsed in the House. “Deem and Pass” has been shelved.  Obama floated the idea of using an executive order to say that the Senate bill doesn’t fund abortion (a bad idea). One key Democrat stated that the House “makes up rules as they go along”.

SMS editors covered the giant Code Red tea party rally where there were tons of people wearing “Abortion is Not Healthcare” stickers and holding up signs indicating they don’t support the government funding abortion. One protester (photo below) even had a sign about Pelosi invoking the intercession of St. Joseph.
Philip Klein has a good summary of what happened today, especially in the abortion area here: http://tinyurl.com/yjrrejw.

Pictures from the tea party rally are here and some favorites are below:

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Oh No She Didn’t!

Today is a big feast day in the Catholic Church, so much so that we get a day off from fasting and abstinence on this Friday in Lent.

It’s the feast day of St. Joseph, the husband of Mary and the foster father of Jesus himself. We could write a lot on how awesome St. Joseph is, as we’re sure many of you know, but suffice to say, the Church wouldn’t give us a day off in Lent if there wasn’t a good reason.

Feast days of saints are great opportunities to ask them for their intercession and prayers as well. St. Joseph is the patron saint of workers (although St. Joseph the Worker feast day is on May 1st – today we celebrate the role of St. Joseph as husband and father) so we’re sure many requests are going up to him today asking for help with their jobs or in help finding or keeping a job.

But one person has called on the intercession of St. Joseph in a very public forum to “benefit the workers of America, which is exactly what our healthcare bill will do.” Want to guess who said it?

Watch till the end – Madame Speaker, a self-proclaimed Catholic, talks about the misleading letter from the nuns supporting the pro-abortion healthcare bill and says that two of the sisters who taught her signed it. Figures.

St. Joseph, pray for of us.

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Catholic or Lobbyist First

You have undoubtly heard the sad news of so called Catholic organizations supporting the current healthcare bill that funds abortions.  Kansas City, Kansas Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann has done great work the expose the true motives of these organizations.  He is also urging his flock to contact key members of Congress this week asking them to vote ‘no’ on the pro-abortion Senate Health Care Reform bill.  His advice is sound for all of us.

You can read the Archbishop’s letter here. Here are the key contact numbers for interested Catholics:

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From the Breviary – 3/15/10

Yesterday, those of us in the Diocese of Arlington were asked to keep a day of prayer and fasting by Bishop Loverde to ask God’s protection and guidance for those who are crafting health care legislation.  I imagine that it is no accident that the petitions for Evening Prayer in the Divine Office for yesterday started off with these:

Glory to God the Father, who has promised through his Son to grant what is asked by those who pray together. With confidence in this promise, let us pray:
– Lord, save the people you have redeemed.

Lord, you gave the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai, and brought it to perfection in your Anointed One,
may all recognize the Law written in their hearts, and keep it faithfully as a covenant.
– Lord, save the people you have redeemed.

Give those in authority a true concern for their brothers and sisters entrusted to their care,
and inspire the hearts of the people to support their leaders.
– Lord, save the people you have redeemed.

It may be a good idea to keep these petitions close to you in the coming days and pray them everyday as we grow closer to a vote on this legislation.  We cannot know what God will allow to happen, but we do know that it is our job to pray for the best.

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Planned Parenthood PR Machine Working Overtime

Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion chain and recipient of over $350 million in taxpayer dollars per year, has had to deal with tons of negative press coverage in the past couple years thanks in large part to many African-American pastors and the undercover videos of Lila Rose.

The latest ordeal comes out of the billboard campaign in Georgia, which we wrote about last week. Georgia Right to Life put up several billboards centered around Atlanta that said black children are an “endangered species” and led viewers to the website www.toomanyaborted.com. Well, the billboards seem to be having an effect as one Georgia lawmaker, with bipartisan support, introduced The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, which would outlaw performing abortions based on race, sex or color.

As the Washington Times explains, “If enacted, the bill would make it illegal to knowingly solicit, perform or accept funding for race- or sex-selected abortions.”

And Planned Parenthood isn’t happy (of course). They don’t like it when they are accused of following in their foundress’ (Margaret Sanger) footsteps.

Planned Parenthood has been wrongly depicted as racist through “race-baiting phone calls,” added Dr. Vanessa Cullins, vice president for medical affairs for Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Those “race-baiting calls” were made by James O’Keefe and Lila Rose. They called several Planned Parenthood clinics around the country and made blatant racists statements as they were trying to find out how to donate money specifically to abort a black baby. The reactions are sickening to listen to. Not one Planned Parenthood rep turned the money down.

What has Planned Parenthood done since then? Dr. Cullins says that they have retrained their staff to “recognize and handle such calls.” Ah yes, problem solved. Now what is Planned Parenthood going to do about the fact that 70% of Planned Parenthood clinics are located in urban neighborhoods where the majority of African-Americans reside?

Stay tuned for more on this topic. It isn’t going away anytime soon. In fact, Planned Parenthood is set to open up the largest abortion facility, 78,000 square feet, in the country in Houston in April. Guess where that’s going – right in the heart of two minority communities in Houston.

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SBA List Poll: Voting for Abortion-Funded Obamacare is Political Suicide

The Susan B Anthony List, a great organization that helps to elect pro-life women, distributed a poll last week in several of the targeted congressional districts of pro-life Democrats. These Dems are part of Congressman Bart Stupak’s soldiers – those Democrats who are not happy that the current healthcare bill they are being asked to vote on funds abortion on demand with government dollars.

No doubt the Obama Administration and Nancy Pelosi are doing their best to arm twist as many of these Congressmen and women as possible. The polling results below should give them extra ammo to vote NO. We showed some of the best questions and answers below in handy charts.

Worth noting is that not only do their constituents oppose taxpayer funds paying for abortions through healthcare but that voting for this bill would be political suicide.

Also, here’s a couple highlights from the overall polling numbers:

  • 3/5 agreed that abortion and abortion funding have no place in healthcare legislation
  • 2/3 don’t want to use tax dollars to pay for abortions
  • Over 50% say they would not vote for a candidate who votes for healthcare legislation that includes federal government funding of abortion.

Full results are here: www.sba-list.org/poll.

INDIANA’S 8TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: CONGRESSMAN BRAD ELLSWORTH

 

 

 

 

 

INDIANA’S 9TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: CONGRESSMAN BARON HILL

 

 

 

 

 

PENNSYLVANIA’S 11TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: CONGRESSMAN PAUL KANJORSKI

 

 

 

 

 

 

PENNSYLVANIA’S 4TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: CONGRESSMAN JASON ALTMIRE

 

 

 

 

 

 

OHIO’S 16TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: CONGRESSMAN JOHN BOCIERI

 

 

 

 

 

 

OHIO’S 9TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: CONGRESSWOMAN MARCY KAPTUR 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OHIO’S 6TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: CONGRESSMAN CHARLIE WILSON 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OHIO’S 1ST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: CONGRESSMAN STEVE DRIEHAUS

 

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Sebelius Doubletalk; Stupak Not Backing Down

Headlines like this don’t get old -“Could Issue of Abortion Derail Health Care Bill?”

And neither does Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), a pro-life Catholic Democrat who, over and over again has said he (and many of his colleagues) will not vote for any bill that funds abortion with government dollars.

President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Planned Parenthood, et al must be fuming. President Obama completely ignored Minority Leader John Boehner’s concern about this during last week’s healthcare summit and Nancy Pelosi is back to her talking points that the bill doesn’t change the status quo on abortion funding.

On Good Morning America this morning, Dept. of Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (remember her? – she and the late late-term abortionist George Tiller were very close) said that the bill doesn’t change the status quo on abortion.

However, on Dec. 22, 2009 Sebelius specifically said that the Senate bill is an “accounting procedure” and that everyone would pay into the abortion fund:

SEBELIUS:That would be an accounting procedure, but everybody in the exchange would do the same thing, whether you’re male or female, whether you’re 75 or 25, you would all set aside a portion of your premium that would go into a fund, and it would not be earmarked for anything, it would be a separate account that everyone in the exchange would pay.”

Stupak followed Sebelius this morning on Good Morning America and said he and his pro-life colleagues cannot vote for a bill that contains language that funds abortion. But then he took it even farther:

STEPHANOPOULOS: “Let me be clear here.  If the president doesn’t change the language, if your language is not accepted, you and your 11 colleagues who voted yes the last time will vote no this time. Does that mean you’re prepared to take responsibility for bringing down this whole bill?”

STUPAK: “Yes, we’re prepared to take responsibility. I mean, I’ve been catching it ever since last fall.  Let’s face it, I want to see health care. But we’re not going to bypass some principles and beliefs that we feel strongly about.”

See the whole GMA segment here: http://bit.ly/aDJoOk

As readers of this blog know, the Senate bill, which is the one Obama’s new bill mirrors, absolutely and without a doubt funds abortion with government money. There is even an “abortion fee” levied through that bill that goes to the abortion fund Sebelius was talking about. We don’t know how Pelosi, Obama and their allies say that it doesn’t fund abortion.

Obama has made it clear he wants Congress to use the tricky procedure of reconciliation to pass/ram through his unpopular healthcare reform (he’s been playing close attention to recent elections as you can tell). The power lies in the House -the bill HAS to pass the House of Representatives before it can go to Obama for his signature and then to the Senate for a majority vote.

You know what you have to do. This is it. The endgame has arrived – don’t let up in contacting your elected officials and tell them you’re not fooled by Obama’s rhetoric. You know abortion funding is in the bill and you don’t want it.

And pray for Rep. Stupak and his allies. No doubt he has the weight of the most powerful people in the world upon his shoulders and they want him to cave to their demands.

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Report from LifeNews:

Richard Doerflinger, the associate director of the pro-life office of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops put Pelosi’s myth to bed.

“We do not know how anyone who has spoken to the bishops could conclude that the Senate health care bill does not fund abortions. As the bishops have said in their letters to Congress, abortion problems in the Senate bill are so serious that, despite our strong support for expanding access to health care, we will have to oppose the bill unless they are resolved,” he said.

“While the Senate bill includes some language limiting the direct use of tax credits to subsidize abortion coverage, it still violates longstanding federal precedent on abortion funding in two ways,” Doerflinger explained.

“First, the Senate’s abortion language limits only use of tax credits for abortion in qualified health plans, not other funding in the bill. For example, the bill authorizes and appropriates $7 billion for services at community health centers (increased to $11 billion in the President’s new proposal). The Hyde amendment does not prevent direct use of these billions of dollars for elective abortions (because the funds are not provided through the appropriations bill governed by Hyde); nor does any provision in the Senate bill,” the pro-life Catholic leader said.

“Second, the Senate’s language on tax credits still allows subsidies for overall health plans that cover elective abortions, against the policy of the Hyde amendment and other longstanding federal laws. The bill requires each American purchasing such a plan to make a separate payment to the insurer every month, solely to pay for other people’s abortions. This is an enormous imposition on the consciences of the millions of Americans who oppose abortion,” Doerflinger concluded in his statement.

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Abortion Funding is Back

Government-funding of abortion is back – actually it never really left but rather was pushed under the radar for awhile. No longer though.

President Obama introduced his version of healthcare reform this morning, which is pretty close to the pro-abortion Senate version of healthcare, rather than the House side. The House version includes the Stupak Amendment, which bars the government from funding abortion, while the Senate version, and Obama’s version, don’t have the Stupak Amendment.

From the LA Times:

The president did not propose any changes to the Senate bill’s restrictions on federal funding for abortion, which would require any woman buying a subsidized health plan with abortion services to pay separately for the abortion benefit.

Led by Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Democrats are going full steam ahead on healthcare. They are purposefully driven and focused on passing some sort of healthcare reform bill that would be a disaster for the unborn and all pro-lifers and even those pro-choicers who don’t want to fund abortion with government money.

 Dan Perrin at RedState says that basically the Dems are losing their minds over Obamacare and are irrationally desperate:

 The Dems cannot accept the defeat of ObamaCare and will try reconciliation because Majority Leader Reid is desperate for liberal support for his failing re-election effort; Speaker Pelosi is genuinely irrational about ObamaCare, and the President believes that the entire Dem Congress should politically self-destruct to save his bill.

 And Human Events reports today that Reid wants to ram through Obamacare in the next two months using a procedural trick.

 And yet, Obama keeps talking about bi-partisanship but when it comes to the only issue that had bi-partisan support – that the government NOT fund abortion on demand – he trashed it.

Action is needed NOW! We know calling/emailing/visiting your Representatives gets old after awhile but they absolutely need to hear from you. Tell them that you will not support any bill that does not include the Stupak Amendment. Need some help reaching your Reps? Go HERE to find out who need to contact.

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