Kansas Rep. Todd Tiahrt touched off a controversy last Thursday when he urged Congress not to fund abortions in D.C., pointing out that had such funding existed years ago it could have snuffed out the African-American luminaries of today before they were born. The children aborted in Washington, D.C., correlating to the city's community of poor on a whole, are disproportionately African-American.
During his remarks the Kansas congressman called for an up-or-down vote in the House of Representatives on the abortion funding in the Financial Services Appropriations bill. The bill had adopted a suggestion by President Obama to eliminate a ban on federal funds for abortions in the city.
"If you think of it in human terms, there is a financial incentive that would be put in place, paid for by tax dollars, that would encourage women who are single parents, living below the poverty level, to have the opportunity for a free abortion," said Tiahrt.
"If you take that scenario and apply it to many of the great minds we have today, who would we have been deprived of?" Rep. Tiahrt asked. "Our president grew up in those similar circumstances. If that financial incentive was in place, is it possible that his mother may have taken advantage of it?"
He added: "Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court justice - if those circumstances were in place, is it possible that we would be denied his great mind?" Thomas was born in an impoverished African American community in Georgia.
Tiahrt's argument drew upon the fact, supported by research from Planned Parenthood's Guttmacher Institute, that abortion disproportionately targets African-American mothers and their children. Today, the abortion rate for black women is five times higher than the abortion rate for white women.
In a report released earlier this month, the Guttmacher Institute also concluded that taxpayer funding for abortion leads to the death of approximately 33% more unborn children than if it were not publicly funded.
Tiahrt's bid for a separate vote on the issue was denied, and despite stiff opposition from Washington pro-life leaders, the abortion funding was voted through in the House Thursday evening 219-208.
The comments immediately drew fire from liberal media, where the remarks were widely decried as divisive and disrespectful. The Kansas Democratic Party (KDP) launched an online petition the next day demanding Tiahrt to apologize.
"No matter where you stand on abortion, we can all agree this is a disgusting, divisive comment and deserves to be rebuked," wrote Mike Nellis of the KDP on the Daily Kos blog Friday. "President Obama deserves better, the U.S. House of Representatives deserves betters, and the people of Kansas deserve better. It's time that we demand it!"
KDP Executive Director Kenny Johnston said in an email to constituents that the comments "are proof that he is unfit to serve the people of Kansas as a U.S. Senator."
Washburn University political science professor Bob Beatty suggested to the Wichita Eagle that Tiahrt made a misstep in making personalized comments on the House floor. "The idea, not just in politics but in American culture, is you stay away from people's mothers," he said.
Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, however, applauded Tiahrt for opposing the D.C. funding that would "further target vulnerable black women for abortions," saying it is "racist at its core."
"After 50 million abortions on all races, it is clear that we have been denied those who would have enriched us as a people," Newman argued. "Have we aborted the one who would have had the intellect and inspiration to find a cure for cancer, or find ways new to feed the hungry?
"It is a legitimate question that needs to be asked, because the societal impact of abortion is deep and devastating, and affects us all. The last thing abortion promoters want is dialog on this subject."
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg - a staunch abortion supporter - caused a stir earlier this month when, in discussing her expectations for Roe v. Wade, she echoed the original eugenic aspirations of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger.
"Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of," said Ginsburg in a New York Times interview published July 7.
Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life Friday condemned Congress' refusal to vote on the D.C. abortion funding.
"The House leadership knows that the public does not want to pay for abortions so they refuse to allow a separate vote on the question," said Fr. Pavone. "Their pure political cowardice, however, will not shield supporters of the DC appropriations bill from pro-life scrutiny."
Over 20,000 people gathered in the southern Cameroon city of Douala last Saturday to stage a peaceful protest march against the country's ratification of the Maputo Protocol, which led to the legalization of abortion throughout much of Africa "in cases of rape, incest or when the pregnancy is determined to put the mother's physical or psychological health in danger."
The march was led Cardinal Christian Wiyghan Tumi, Archbishop of Douala, on the sixth anniversary of the adoption of the Protocol by the second Ordinary Session of the African Union in Maputo, Mozambique, on July 11, 2003, the Fides news agency reported.
The marchers, some carrying placards which read "abortion is an abomination," and "do not legalise sin," marched for almost two hours and converged on Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral where a special Mass was said.
An interreligious delegation of Catholics, Protestants and Muslims also handed a letter and petition to the Governor, to be presented to the President of the Republic, Paul Biya, with 30,000 signatures, petitioning an end to legal abortion.
The Cameroon Bishops' Conference published a declaration in January of this year in which it expressed its opposition to the legalization of abortion called for by the Protocol.
The coadjutor Archbishop of the Douala Archdiocese, Samuel Kleda said in the homily during the Mass, "We are in agreement with this praiseworthy project (of protecting women). Who can remain indifferent to the suffering of a woman? At the same time, we cannot pretend to defend women by proposing that they have an abortion and use contraception, which threatens their dignity and nuclear family. No reason can be used to justify abortion or infanticide."
Talking to the press after the Mass, Cardinal Tumi said abortion was an abomination.
"The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI already spoke on this agreement. The association of the African conferences of Bishops and the one in Madagascar had spoken and quite a number of dioceses have already spoken.
"That is the reason why we organized this march and we ended with a Mass to pray for those who are involved in these practices for God to forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing," Cardinal Tumi said in an AfricaNews report.
Chief A.S. Ngwana, leader of the Cardinal Democratic Party (CDP), a politician who has been very vocal against the Maputo Protocol and who joined in the march, said issues like abortion and homosexuality transcend politics since they concern the well being of future Cameroonians.
Chief Ngwana told a press conference that he would not hesitate to undertake a nationwide campaign against the Maputo Protocol until the Head of State withdrew Cameroon from it. He said legalizing abortion was "a ploy from the West to check the African population."
The communist government of Viet Nam is punishing couples with more than two children, a local Catholic news agency reports. Catholic villagers in Thua Thien-Hue province told the Union of Catholic Asian News they are being fined for having more than two children under a revived government two-child policy.
Catherine Pham Thi Thanh, 44, told the service that since 1996, she has been fined a total of 3,800 kilograms of rice for having six children. This represents a significant loss for the family which makes an annual profit of only 700 kilograms of rice from their 1,000 square-meter farm.
Despite the fact that Viet Nam now has a below-replacement rate of fertility - 1.83 children born per woman - the communist government in the early 1960s imposed a 2-child limit for couples. The UN's leading population control group, the UNFPA, has been active in contraception and abortion campaigns in the country since 1997.
In 2000, the BBC lauded the policy for having reduced the overall fertility rate from 3.8 children per woman to 2.3, but admitted that a "degree of coercion" was used to ensure compliance. This included fines, expulsion from the communist party and confiscation of land. The original policy was scrapped in 2003 but revived in 2008 after a 10 percent spike in the birth rate alarmed officials who never stopped "encouraging" couples to have only small families.
But even the UNFPA was reportedly "puzzled" by the revival. "In Vietnam now life expectancy is rising, the fertility rate is decreasing and in the next 20 years many people will be in the senior group," said Tran Thi Van, of UNFPA. "If there's not a sufficient labor force as the population is ageing, the country will face a lot of problems."
Viet Nam is following China and India on the path of demographic imbalance. The combination of ultrasound tests to determine the sex of the child plus abortion to favor boys, has forced the male to female ratio of the population to climb to 112-100 in 2007.
The Union of Catholic Asian News spoke to the local parish priest, Fr Joseph Nguyen Van Chanh, who confirmed that 90 percent of his 1,200 parishioners have agreed to pay fines as a way to be faithful to Church teaching and said that Catholics are taught natural family planning methods during marriage preparation courses.
Some local Catholics, said Father Chanh, are asking for donations from benefactors to support local people with large families.
The Pro-Life Action League will gather at Planned Parenthood in Aurora today to raise awareness about abortion. This marks the culmination of the group's eight-day Face the Truth tour, which kicked off July 10 in Joliet. Anti-abortion activists will hold graphic pictures of unborn and aborted babies, while handing out pamphlets to people passing by. "The power of signs is undeniable," said Eric Scheidler, the League's executive director, in a press release. Click here for the full article.
Abortion activists are working to rebuild a coalition in Kansas following the death of one of the nation's few late-term abortion providers and the closure of his political action committee. Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed May 31 at his church, and his family has since closed his Wichita clinic. ProKanDo, the political action committee he founded and funded, was closed in mid-June upon the request of the Tiller family, its former director, Julie Burkhart said. But even before his closure of the ProKanDo, the political action committee had been struggling to find someone in Kansas willing to take it over after Burkhart left the job in April. The Kansas chapter of the National Organization for Women is working has since formed its own political action committee to fill the void left by ProKanDo. Click here for the full article.
A decision is expected soon about what doctors may tell South Dakota women who seek abortions, which could finally bring an end to a hotly debated case that reached a federal appeals court. U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier also could decide to send the case to a trial. At issue is the state's informed consent for abortions law, which requires doctors to tell women that abortion ends a human life. About three dozen people packed the gallery of the federal courthouse in Sioux Falls as the four-year-old case returned to court for oral arguments. Planned Parenthood, which operates the state's only abortion clinic, asked a judge to rule that provisions of the law aimed at providing women with factual information before an abortion are too vague or simply inaccurate. Click here for the full article.
A proposed constitutional amendment that would protect the rights of embryos is advancing. On Thursday, the personhood amendment proposal got the approval of legislative staffers assigned to review and make recommendations on all ballot measures. Next it must be reviewed by the state title board, which makes sure that all voter initiatives only address a single topic. The proposed amendment says the term "person" would apply to every human being "from the beginning of the biological development of that human being." Click here for the full article.
Now that Barack Hussein Obama has undermined free enterprise by nationalizing major financial and manufacturing sectors of our economy, he has set his sights on the health care sector, which comprises almost 18 percent of the U.S. economy. This shouldn't surprise us. After all, he did promise a "fundamental transformation of the United States of America," and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, did cite the current economic crisis as the means for doing so. "Rule 1: Never allow a crisis to go to waste," Emanuel said. "They are opportunities to do big things." Click here for the full article.
Abortions could be paid for at taxpayers' expense if two healthcare reform bills get passed by congress. According to OneNewsNow, the two primary measures -- the Kennedy bill and the House Democrat leadership bill -- contain provisions that would represent the greatest expansion of abortion since the Supreme Court legalized it in 1973. "These two bills contain multiple provisions that would result in federally mandated insurance coverage of abortion on demand, result in massive federal subsidies for abortion, result even in mandated creation of many new abortion clinics across the country," said Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee. Click here for the full article.
Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (PPRM), along with the national organization Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), today hosted a Capitol Hill day. PPRM representatives joined more than 300 other Planned Parenthood staff, board members and volunteers from across the country to discuss with members of Congress the importance of making women's health a priority in health care reform. Today's lobby day was a huge success. Planned Parenthood staff, board members and volunteers made nearly 250 visits to members of Congress and delivered two main messages: any health care reform effort must include access to comprehensive reproductive health care, and women's access to essential community providers must be protected. This ensures that basic prevention care, such as contraception, Pap tests, and other cancer screenings are covered and that women are able to access trusted health care providers in the communities where they live. Click here for the full article.
I've always been pro-choice -- for the baby. The baby is the one who should get to choose. The fact of the matter is: Abortion is the torture murder of an unborn child. The reason that abortion is legal [sic] in this country is that unborn children don't vote, and they don't make campaign contributions, so they don't have the political clout to get their safety protected. That's the same reason why there in no law requiring seat belts on school buses in Illinois and most other states. Another reason why abortion remains legal is that the murder is committed in secret. Nobody is allowed to see the baby writhing in excrutiating, searing pain and mind-blowing agony during the heinous act. Nobody hears its desperate, silent screams. Click here for the full article.
As you know, a lot of energy was expended to stop the "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA) from being introduced.
And it wasn't introduced. But we warned that its provisions of expanding abortion and forcing us to pay for it would be snuck in under another bill.
Well now it's here, and we have to act quickly to stop it.
The health care reform bills now being finalized in Congress are going to end up mandating the federal funding of abortion.
Unless Congress explicitly excludes abortion. And that's what I'm asking you to urge them to do.
Please take these steps today:
a) Click here and read more about this and then fill out the form at the bottom to send a message to your representatives in Congress.
b) Call the offices of your Representative and two Senators at 202-224-3121 and tell them that you want abortion to be explicitly excluded in any health care reform bill.
If we don't do this, we will end up with a health care reform bill that will expand abortion more radically than anything since Roe vs. Wade, and we will find ourselves under a law requiring abortion funding. The other side wants to sneak this in and wants to do so in the next few weeks.
Here is an explanatory guest message from retired astronaut Dr. Joseph Kerwin...
Dear fellow CatholicVote.org member,
In just a few days our nation will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the historic mission of Apollo 11 to the moon. While I never personally made it to the moon, I was privileged to serve as the first American doctor in space with Skylab 2.
Today I am honored to announce the launch of a new ad from CatholicVote.org....
As you read this, I am appearing alongside other retired astronauts along with CatholicVote.org President Brian Burch at a press conference in Houston. The reason for the media event is that the new CatholicVote.org ad (thanks to you!) will be running regularly on local Houston television stations for the next several weeks.
Joining me today at the press conference are retired astronaut Dr. Bill Thornton, and Mr. Gene Kranz - the Flight Director at Mission Control during the Apollo program, including the famous Apollo 13 mission. Mr. Kranz was played by Ed Harris in the 1995 Oscar award winning film.
Like you, I am a big fan of CatholicVote.org. Their new ad is already creating buzz in Houston, and I can't wait for the rest of the country to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 with this new ad.
Next Monday, media outlets around the world will commemorate the historic achievement of Apollo 11. The courage and dedication of the astronauts aboard Apollo 11, and hundreds of others involved in our nation's space program make me proud of our great country.
But most importantly, the achievements of the space program remind me of the potential of every human life.
In anticipation of the 40th Anniversary this Monday, CatholicVote.org is preparing to launch web ads across the Internet to promote their new commercial. This historic anniversary is a perfect opportunity to show America, and the world, the power of every human life.
CatholicVote.org needs your help to saturate the Internet next week. They have reserved ad space with the intent of promoting their new ad to millions of our fellow Americans. Please consider helping them out now.
This is a historic date, and an opportunity we can't afford to miss. Watch the new ad and be sure help my friends at CatholicVote.org.
Thank you for your prayers and support of CatholicVote.org.
May God bless you and your families.
A proud member of CatholicVote.org,
Dr. Joseph Kerwin
Astronaut-Scientist, Skylab 2
P.S. While Monday July 20 marks the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11, during my service at NASA I also had the privilege of participating in the effort to save Apollo 13. One of my responsibilities was to explain to imperiled Astronaut Jack Swigert how to construct a make shift carbon-dioxide scrubber that allowed the crew to continue to breathe.
Not everyone will get to walk on the moon. The creativity and resourcefulness that helped save Apollo 13 is a reflection of what happens throughout our world everyday. May we never cease to marvel at the gift, and potential of every human life.
The Americans United for Life blog has a new post entitled, "Sotomayor contradicted herself on what she knew about PRLDEF abortion advocacy." This includes a statement made by Sotomayor only yesterday morning during the Senate hearings on her Supreme Court confirmation explaining her involvement with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund that directly contradicted with her testimony in the afternoon expressing ignorance about 6 radical pro-abortion briefs PRLDEF filed.
In her testimony yesterday, Americans United for Life's Charmaine Yoest made the case that Sonia Sotomayor would be a pro-abortion radical on the Supreme Court.
Yoest detailed radical pro-abortion briefs submitted by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, of which Sotomayor was a board member...
During the 12 years that Judge Sotomayor served as a governing board member of the PRLDEF, the organization filed 6 amicus briefs in 5 abortion-related cases before the Supreme Court....
Sotomayor served the PRLDEF "at various points" as a member and vice president of the Board of Directors, and as Chairperson of the Education and Litigation Committees. Judge Sotomayor was described in The New York Times as "frequently meeting with the legal staff to review the status of cases... [and] play[ing] an active role as the defense fund staked out aggressive stances on issues.... The board monitored all litigation undertaken by the fund's lawyers, and a number of those lawyers said Ms. Sotomayor was an involved and ardent supporter of their various legal efforts during her time with the group."
It is difficult to imagine that a member of the Board of a legal organization that has staked out a pro-abortion advocacy agenda, who was "an ardent supporter of their legal efforts," would not agree with the organization's decision to sign onto amicus briefs in major Supreme Court cases....
In those briefs PRLDEF opposed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, opposed informed consent before abortion, opposed waiting periods before abortion, opposed parental involvement, supported mandatory taxpayer funding of abortion at both the state and federal levels, opposed record keeping and reporting requirements as "harrass[ment]," and compared abortion to a First Amendment right.
Which brings us to Sotomayor's potential perjury yesterday, as blogged by AUL's Dawn Eden:
Hatch brings up the PRLDEF briefs and notes Sotomayor served on a dozen different leadership positions during her 12 years on the fund's board. Says he wants to ask questions regarding abortion cases in which the fund filed briefs....
Brings up amicus brief comparing refusing to use Medicaid funds for abortion to the Dred Scott case. "Did you know the fund was filing this brief?"
soto hands away.jpg
Sotomayor: "No sir."
Asks if she knew the fund was making its Dred Scott argument.
Sotomayor: "No."
He runs down a line of questions asking if she ever made any objections to the arguments made in the brief. She responds: "I was not a lawyer on the fund. ... I was a board member." Says it was not her practice to review the briefs.
He cites the fund's Ohio brief [in which PRLDEF argued against parental involvement laws] and begins running down the same list of questions. Did she know the fund was filing this brief?
Sotomayor: "No." Says she knew generally that they were filing briefs but didn't know of the brief until after the fact.
He brings up the Planned Parenthood vs. Casey brief [in which PRLDEF argued against informed consent and waiting periods] and asks the same questions.
Sotomayor: "For the same reason, no."
She may have just perjured herself. The Judicary Committee has the minutes of the PRLDEF litigation committee's meetings, showing that Sotomayor was briefed on pending litigation. It would be interesting to compare the dates of the briefings with the dates of those briefs Sotomayor claims she never saw in advance.
Eden then referred to the Republican Senate Leader Board blog that evaluated the meeting notes:
PRLDEF Committee minutes show deeper involvement than acknowledged....
PRLDEF Litigation Committee minutes confirm that board members including Judge Sotomayor were routinely briefed on litigation status....
When Sotomayor was chairperson of the Litigation Committee, she briefed the board on current litigation....
The Leader Board blog reposted the leadership positions Sotomayor held at PRLDEF, per her response to a questionnaire to Sen. Jeff Sessions:
• Member of the Board of Directors: 1980-1992 • Education and Professional Development Committee: 1980 • Nominations Committee: 1980, 1981, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1987, and 1990 • Litigation Committee: 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, and 1991 • Chairperson of the Litigation Committee: 1983, 1984, 1987, and 1988 • Executive Committee: 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988 • Treasurer: 1982 • Special Vice Chair of the Board: 1984, 1985 • Second Vice Chair of the Board: 1986 • First Vice Chair of the Board: 1987, 1988 • Finance Committee: 1986, 1987, 1988 • Personnel Committee: 1988
Here are the dates PRLDEF submitted its amicus briefs on these abortion-related cases before the Supreme Court:
• Williams v. Zbaraz, 1980 • Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 1989 • Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health,1990 • Rust v. Sullivan, 1991 • Planned Parenthood v. Casey , 1992
And Sotomayor was completely oblivious to every single one? She had nothing to do with any other them? I find this very hard to believe. I expect Republican staffers have been scouring PRLDEF committee meeting notes all night.
This information is important because it not only shows Sotomayor may have perjured herself yesterday, but it shows she as a Supreme Court justice would oppose common sense legislation passed by the people that even David Souter most often supported.
30-week-old babies in the womb already have short-term memory capabilities, a new study from the Netherlands, published in the July/August 2009 issue of the journal Child Development, has found.
Researchers at Maastricht University Medical Centre and the University Medical Centre St. Radboud examined 93 healthy pregnant Dutch women and their unborn children, measuring changes in how the child responds to repeated stimulation. The children were tested at 30, 32, 34, and 36 weeks, and again at 38 weeks gestation.
The study showed that the unborn children would initially respond to a "vibroacoustic" stimulus. The stimulus would then be repeated every 30 seconds until "habituation" occured, and the children no longer reacted, evidently accepting the sound as safe. Ultrasonography showed that in a second session ten minutes after the first, the children apparently "remembered" the stimulus and the number of stimuli needed for habituation grew much smaller.
The scientists found that at thirty weeks, the child in the womb has a short-term memory of about ten minutes. At 34 weeks, the child can store information and retrieve it up to four weeks later. The younger children who had been tested at 34 and 36 weeks were later able to habituate much faster than children at 38 weeks who had never been tested.
"This is the next step into a better insight in the development of the foetal central nervous system," said study co-author Dr. Jan G. Nijhuis, director of the Centre for Genetics, Reproduction and Child Health at Maastricht University Medical Centre in the Netherlands. "We aim to develop an 'intra-uterine neurologic examination,' which could then be used in foetuses at risk."
Researchers at the Guttmacher Institute earlier this month issued a report that found that about 1/4 of the women who would have aborted their child if the government had provided the funds decided to keep their children.
The Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood's research arm, concluded from a survey of 38 studies that women unable to pay for abortions on their own were frequently "forced to carry their pregnancy to term."
Stanley Hershaw, a Guttmacher Institute senior fellow and the study's lead author, commented that "Antiabortion advocates are using these restrictions in a misguided attempt to reduce the nation's abortion rate," and that they should instead address the "underlying cause" by promoting the use of contraceptives.
Obama pledged to Pope Benedict XVI earlier this month his "commitment to reducing the numbers of abortion" in the words of one Vatican spokesman. However, the healthcare package President Obama is aggressively pushing through both chambers of Congress is being widely decried by a growing group of conservatives and pro-lifers as bound to force virtually all Americans to pay for abortion as "essential healthcare." Should the health bill include coverage for abortion, it is highly likely that the abortion rate will spike dramatically, according to the Guttmacher study.
In his budget recommendations to Congress, Obama also urged lawmakers to remove the ban on taxpayer-funded abortion in Washington, D.C. - thereby causing taxpayer dollars from across America to foot the bill for abortions in the capital.
According to Concerned Women for America president Wendy Wright, one Obama official presiding over an abortion task force meeting corrected Wright when she stated that Obama's goal was to reduce abortions. Melody Barnes, the Director of Domestic Policy Council, insisted that the President only wished to reduce the "need" for abortions, and not the number of abortions themselves.
A Swedish liberal party MP and feminist activist has launched a campaign that, if successful, could see abortion enshrined as a "human right" across the EU - potentially forcing Ireland, as well as Malta and Poland, to abolish their protections for the unborn.
Birgitta Ohlsson, an extreme left member of Sweden's Liberal People's Party, has founded the group "Make Noise for Free Choice" that hopes to obtain the one million petition signatures necessary for a "citizens' initiative" to force acceptance of abortion as a "human right" under the new Lisbon Treaty. According to the Treaty, a proposal which gains one million signatures from a sufficient number of countries must be considered by the European commission. According to the Times Online the number of countries necessary has yet to be determined.
The website for the initiative specifically targets Ireland, Malta and Poland, saying: "All around the world, women are denied their right to free, legal and safe abortions. ... It is the everyday reality facing women in Ireland, Poland and Malta."
Patricia Casey, a professor of psychiatry at University College Dublin, reacted strongly to the effort, telling the Times Online, "It's ironic for a country like Sweden, with such a track record of protecting human rights, that campaigners from there are campaigning for the killing of unborn children. There is certainly a contradiction."
Pat Buckley, the representative at Brussels of Britain's Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that the chance of success for the initiative depends upon how much support the group has in the European Parliament. He was not optimistic that the initiative would certainly fail, however, since he pointed out that MEPs have already voted several times for "reproductive rights and choice" in recent years. "There is a very strong support in the Parliament for the concept of abortion as a human right," he added.
The group, he said, assume they have the right to dictate to a sovereign nation. "Their attitude is that they're the experts on human rights, and abortion is a human right, therefore Ireland must change its laws."
So far, however, the petition has only been signed by 3489 people, although organizers intend to continue the campaign until October of 2010.
The Ohlsson initiative highlights the concerns of Irish pro-life campaigners who have long warned that the attempt to force Ireland to accept the Lisbon Treaty is a direct threat to the country's pro-life laws and to its sovereignty. Life and family issues were found to be prominent among the Irish voters' reasons for rejecting the Treaty in a referendum a year ago.
Since the failure of the 2008 referendum, Irish politicians have obtained what they claim are "cast-iron guarantees" from the EU on key areas of discontent including abortion law, taxation and neutrality. These, they said, would provide an opt-out for Ireland, to be voted on by all member states, at the time of the next accession treaty to bring in new member states to the EU.
But Buckley said that promises obtained by the government mean little because it is the European Court of Justice who interprets the Lisbon Treaty. The danger of these "guarantees," he said, is that "heads of government are not in any position to make a commitment on behalf of the EU Court of Justice."
The guarantees, he said, do not change the Lisbon Treaty itself "one iota." "It will be precisely the same treaty that we voted down last year."
"When the Court of Justice is called upon to interpret the Treaty with regard to abortion, they could interpret it to mean that there is a right to abortion. Ireland will then be bound to that because they would already have voted to ratify Lisbon."
Abortion activists have long known the clout of the European courts to force a change in law. Three women are currently taking the Irish government to the European Court of Human Rights to attempt to overthrow the Irish law.
Buckley said that the only "clear way" to deal with the threat "would be a protocol, attached to the Lisbon Treaty itself, to give Ireland a direct opt out. This would be a message to the Court of Justice who would then be obliged to interpret the Treaty according to that protocol."
Another factor in the possible success of the Ohlsson initiative is what Buckley calls "competence creep" in EU institutions. He explained that ostensibly there are certain issues over which the EU has no competence, including social areas like family and abortion. But slowly over the years, "competence creep" has eroded that principle under different ideological agendas such as that of so-called "equality rights."
These activists, he said, introduce legislation related to "equality" which include issues like abortion and marriage in the sections on definitions. "In theory they're not supposed to have any competence whatsoever in these areas, but in practice, because of competence creep, they continually expand their remit to include areas which should not be part of their brief."
"I'd like to think that [the Ohlsson initiative] hadn't a hope, but knowing how the system works in Brussels, it is likely they will have the support they need. It would be difficult for them acting alone to do it - it depends upon what sort of assistance they get - there's certainly a possibility this could happen."
Supporting the initiative are MEPs and community leaders from Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands, including Baroness Sarah Ludford, a Liberal Democrat MEP who sits on Euro-Parliament's committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and Vice-Chairwoman of the European Parliament's Human Rights Sub-Committee. Also listed as supporting are Sophie in 't Veld, a Dutch Member of the European Parliament for the social liberal party Democrats 66, and Lone Dybkjµr, a member of the Danish Parliament for the Radikale Venstre party.
Last week in Geneva, Switzerland, negotiations went down to the wire as the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) wound down its high-level meeting on health. After a marathon negotiating session that lasted until the wee hours of the morning, delegates adopted the Ministerial Declaration on "implementing the internationally agreed goals and commitments in regard to global public health," rejecting a push by the United States (US) and most European Union (EU) countries to include language that some NGO's and developed nations interpret to include abortion.
When negotiations began on the declaration at United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York last month, delegations became embroiled in heated debates almost immediately over controversial language regarding reproductive health "rights," "sexual and reproductive health services" and "universal access to family planning." As C-Fam's Friday Fax previously reported, the Obama Administration had proposed "universal access" to "sexual and reproductive health services including universal access to family planning."
By the time negotiations in New York wound down before resuming in Geneva, the US had apparently moderated its position and would have been willing to compromise, but delegates from Sweden, Finland, Norway, Netherlands, Estonia and France insisted on including "reproductive rights" language. The terms "reproductive health services" and "reproductive rights" remain highly contentious in UN social policy discussions because they continue to be interpreted by powerful non-governmental organizations and UN agencies to include abortion.
Despite concentrated efforts to conclude the negotiations in New York prior to the start of the Geneva meeting, delegations were unable to reach consensus over the contentious language.
Late night negotiations carried on in Geneva as delegations continued to battle it out over the "reproductive rights" language in the draft text. While the US delegation remained quiet on the reproductive health provisions, the EU remained divided as Poland, Malta and Ireland continued opposing the controversial language despite pressure from their colleagues.
Malta's ambassador Victor Camillari made a strongly worded statement that stressed that "the right to life extended to the unborn child from the moment of conception and that the use of abortion as a means of resolving health or social problems was a denial of that right, and therefore Malta consistently disassociated itself from, and considered invalid, all statements or decisions that used references to sexual and reproductive health, directly or indirectly, to impose obligations on anyone to accept abortion as a right, a service or a commodity that could exist outside the ambit of national legislation."
The most contentious language regarding "reproductive rights" was removed from the text and the final declaration was adopted by consensus. While some language regarding "sexual and reproductive health" made it into the declaration, the reference was limited to the understanding reached at the Cairo Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Conference on Women, where it was agreed that no abortion rights were created and states made explicit reservations defining abortion out of the reproductive health and family planning provisions.
ECOSOC plans on holding a follow-up meeting next year to gauge how the impact of the declaration in changing public health systems
Disclaimer: The linked items below or the websites at which they are located do not necessarily represent the views of The Illinois Federation for Right to Life. They are presented only for your information. House Pro-Life Members Muzzled by Pelosi's Pro-Abortion Leadership
House Narrowly Passes Legislation to Allow Taxpayer-Funded Abortion in the District of Columbia
Today the president of the Susan B. Anthony List commented on today's House passage of H.R. 3170, the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, by a vote of 219 to 208.
"Today the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to expand taxpayer funding for abortion in our nation's capitol, but it didn't come easily for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her abortion allies like Planned Parenthood," said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. "Pro-life leaders from both sides of the aisle used every tool at their disposal to allow an up-or-down vote on the measure. President Obama's decision to force American taxpayers to foot the bill for abortions in the District of Columbia will cause the deaths of at least 1,000 more unborn children each year. Instead of continuing the long tradition of open and fair debate on appropriations bills, Speaker Pelosi muzzled not just Republicans, but even members of her own caucus. President Obama and Speaker Pelosi are on a collision course with broad public opposition to taxpayer-funding for abortion. Today's battle will only be the first of many, as more Representatives strive to better represent the views of pro-life America by passing laws that will truly save lives." Click here for the full article.
Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) said he plans to introduce an amendment to the House health care overhaul bill (HR 3200) that would prohibit insurers from being required to cover abortion, unless the woman's life is at risk or the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest, CQ Today reports. Pitts said he will offer the amendment Thursday at the first House Energy and Commerce Committee mark-up session.
The House bill would authorize the Obama administration to craft minimum benefit standards for health insurance plans, CQ Today reports. President Obama has said that he considers reproductive health care an essential service. Click here for the full article.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is facing another legal battle. The ACLU filed a motion in Maricopa Superior Court last week to stop the sheriff from requiring inmates who ask for abortions to pay up front for transportation costs to the procedure. "He can't ask people to pre-pay to receive these medical services," ACLU Executive Director Alessandra Solar Meetze said. The ACLU's action stems from a December 2008 incident. Click here for the full article.
Although Obama chastised Bill Clinton during the presidential primary for withholding crucial files from Hillary's disastrous healthcare task force, he supports the former commander-in-chief's decision to withhold hundreds of documents relating to Sonia Sotomayor's 1990s appeals court confirmation battle. Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request from various media outlets, the Clinton Presidential Library recently posted thousands of documents relating to the 1997 nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, but crucial files were purposely excluded. Click here for the documents. Click here for the full article.
Dozens of pro-lifers visiting Las Vegas for a national convention have gathered outside a women's clinic for a protest. As many as 50 people were outside the A-Z Women's Clinic on Thursday. They chanted at passers-by and held up posters. Operation Save America, an anti-abortion group, is in Las Vegas this week for a national convention. The group plans to stage events throughout the Las Vegas area through Wednesday, including protests outside six abortion clinics. Click here for the full article.
Characterizing the legislative session, which ended July 1, as "one of the most unusual and bitter legislative sessions in memory," Ron Johnson of the Arizona Catholic Conference (ACC) listed legislative achievements in a "wrap-up" announcement.
Johnson said the ACC was "especially grateful" that Governor Jan Brewer signed into law the Abortion Consent Bill, which requires informed consent and a 24-hour waiting period before abortions, tightens parental consent requirements. The new laws also specify that non-physicians cannot perform surgical abortions and they provide conscience protections for health care workers and pharmacists.
According to Johnson, the provisions barring non-physicians from performing abortions were added because new information showed that nurse practitioners performed more abortions than previously thought.
A state ban on partial-birth abortions was also enacted, while an end-of-life measure preserves food and fluids for certain patients with guardians. Click here for the full article.
Parents in Illinois were handed a victory by the 7th Circuit Court yesterday.
For the first time since Roe v. Wade became law, parents in Illinois have won the right to be notified if their underage daughter seeks an abortion. That right was won after the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday dissolved a federal injunction on the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act.
That act was passed more than ten years ago, but was never enacted due to the courts. Since then more than 50,000 underage girls have obtained abortions in Illinois -- some of them as young as 14 years of age.
David Smith, who heads the Illinois Family Institute, says the recent decision will save lives.
"No parent wants their children to go through a procedure like that," says Smith. "Most parents...would want to see the baby come into the family and that the whole support group there take care of the child -- or...they could [even] explore other options like adoption."
"Parents want to be able to have that say in their minor child's life," he continues, "and to be able to protect them from the physical [and] emotional harms that come along with an abortion."
Smith says Illinois attracted a lot of out-of-state minors seeking abortions because their home states required parental notification. He hopes this latest court ruling will put a stop to that.
Pro-life groups and lawmakers are continuing to raise the alarm over the healthcare reform package President Obama is aggressively pushing through both the House and the Senate. The groups are urging Americans to oppose the healthcare overhaul, as pro-abortion lawmakers are insisting that abortion must be included in the basic healthcare package that all public and private insurers will eventually be required to cover.
Leading pro-life Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) at a Washington press conference today questioned: "Why the rush to enact Mr. Obama's exceedingly expensive, complex and potentially ruinous health care restructuring plan without the benefit of comprehensive hearings on and through a vetting of the actual bill text?
"Obamacare is the greatest threat ever to the lives and wellness of unborn children and their mothers since Roe v. Wade was rendered in 1973," he said.
Smith noted that a study by the Planned Parenthood's Guttmacher Institute showed that the widened availability of abortion through government funding increases the number of unborn children killed by 20%-35%.
"Obamacare opens the spigot of public funding and does more to facilitate abortion than any action since Roe. This is the big one!" said Smith.
Another "egregious flaw" in the bill, said the congressman, is its requirement that all insurance providers contract with "essential community providers" - a mantle eagerly taken up by Planned Parenthood in a media campaign last month.
"In other words, all health insurance companies will be compelled by the Obamacare to contract with abortion clinics or simply not be certified to do business," said Smith.
Further evidence of the hidden abortion expansion in the bill came during a meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee last week, when Sen. Orrin Hatch asked for confirmation from Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) as to whether the funds would cover abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood.
Following the meeting, Planned Parenthood immediately launched a petition to tell Sen. Hatch "to stop lying about health care legislation," and claimed that the senator was "falsely claiming that the amendment mandates abortion coverage."
However, it was Mikulski who admitted in the exchange that Planned Parenthood clinics and their abortion services would be subsidized by the healthcare plan, though she appeared reluctant to answer the question.
HATCH: "...Would this include abortion providers? I mean, it looks to me like you're expanding it to... for instance, Planned Parenthood. Would that put them into this system?"
MIKULSKI: "It would include women's health clinics that provide comprehensive services and under the definition of a woman's health clinic, it would include, uh, it would include, uh, Planned, uh, Parenthood clinics. It would, um, it does not expand in any way expand a service. In other words, it does not expand, um, uh, or mandate abortion service."
HATCH: "No, but it would provide for them."
MIKULSKI: "It would provide for any service deemed medically necessary or medically appropriate."
HATCH: "Well, I would have a rough time supporting it on that basis. I just wanted to get that clarified. Thank you."
Later, Hatch asked, "Madam Chairman, would you be willing to put some language in [about] not including abortion services? Then I think you would have more support."
Mikulski answered, "No, I would not, uh, be willing to do that at this time."
Accordingly, the committee yesterday rejected amendments offered by the National Right to Life Committee that would have explicitly excluded abortion from the bill.
On Friday, an amendment introduced by Mikulski known as the Women's Health Amendment passed by a 12-11 margin. Capitol Hill pro-lifers expect that the broad language of the amendment will provide the gateway to abortion coverage in the federal plan.
In the brief amount of time allotted to the abortion debate in this week's Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Judge Sonia Sotomayor assured members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that she would allow Roe v. Wade to stand as precedent, but did not consider the absolute ban on partial-birth abortion to constitute precedent of equal weight.
Judge Sotomayor frequently referred to her commitment to the doctrine of stare decisis, or allowing earlier decisions to stand as guiding principles for future decisions, throughout the hearings - perhaps in response to critics who have said Sotomayor's decisions frequently reflect an activist judicial philosophy.
Sotomayor defended Roe v. Wade and the court's other pro-abortion decisions on the basis of a constitutional "right to privacy."
When Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) on Tuesday queried whether Sotomayor also considered the partial-birth abortion ban "settled law," she replied, "All precedent of the Supreme Court I consider settled law, subject to the deference the doctrine of stare decisis would counsel."
But when pro-abortion Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) probed the partial-birth abortion question further, Sotomayor indicated that she did not consider the unequivocal nature of the ban part of the "precedent" set by the ruling.
"The health and welfare of a woman must be a compelling consideration," Sotomayor admitted.
Norma McCorvey, the "Roe" of Roe v. Wade who is now a leading pro-life activist, was arrested at Monday's hearing for shouting out a condemnation of Sotomayor's pro-abortion position.
"You're wrong Sotomayor, you're wrong about abortion," McCorvey declared before being escorted from the room.
Now that the assisted suicide movement believes it has some winds in its sails, its pretense of being reasonable and measured is collapsing under the ideological zeal that drives the movement. Case in point: The head of Compassion and Choices, Barbara Coombs Lee, has written an outrageous piece in the Huffington Post, that libels health care providers as torturers. From her piece:
In this country we usually torture people before we allow them to die of whatever is killing them — cancer, emphysema, the multi-organ failure of diabetes or heart disease…Our medical-industrial complex follows a cultural paradigm to do as many things to people near death as is medically possible. Our broken system rewards that paradigm with fee-for-service payments.
Standard routine is to torture those in the process of dying by inflicting upon them a host of toxic chemicals, invasive machinery and painful surgeries. It's the American way of dying — agonized and prolonged imprisonment in an intensive care unit, pinned down under a maze of tubes and machines, enduring one medical procedure after another, unable to hold or be held by loved ones.
What shameless and false demagoguery. The vast majority of people in this country do not die in ICU units. Hospitals aren't prisons. Doctors aren't torturing people, they are trying to treat them, which can be painful to be sure, but much effort is made to control painful and uncomfortable symptoms. Nobody ties people down and forces them to have chemotherapy, surgery, kidney dialysis, etc. Most people are desperate for these interventions–even when the doctor advises against because they are unlikely to do much good. Moreover, most care these days is not fee for service, it is managed care through the HMO system. Fee for service to physicians under Medicare is hardly a cornucopia, and in fact is being continually cut–including in the new health care plan.
But she isn't just implying that physicians are torturers, she accuses them of being sadistic:
Oncologists entice their dying patients into bearing one more, experimental round of chemotherapy almost certain to intensify toxic symptoms without extending life. Surgeons repair the fractures and amputate the limbs of people clearly only a few weeks from death. The newest medical specialists, "hospital intensivists" deftly thread tubes into failing hearts and attach ventilators to decrepit lungs. Much of the pain they inflict does nothing but monitor the chemistry and pressures of internal crevices and gather the information necessary to thwart a body trying to shut itself down.
I know that Coombs Lee knows this isn't true. She is well aware that Futile Care Theory is charging down the tracks, which is explicitly intended to prevent patients from receiving life-extending care when the bioethicists think the quality of their lives aren't worth the money spent.
And then, shifting gears, she attacks health care costs at the end of life. Does she want assisted suicide as a cost saving? You know she does, but doesn't say it. Does she want futile care legally imposed? That would appear to be true, but she doesn't say it. She just tells readers to call Congress and urge reform to stop the financial bleeding. But she doesn't really say what policy she would like to see enacted.
But the conclusion to her piece is just window dressing. Her purpose was to alienate people from their doctors and panic them into supporting assisted suicide, which ironically, would be provided by the same physician "sadists" she castigates. What a shameless piece of propaganda.
A case involving an attack by a South Carolina abortion clinic worker against a nine-year-old pro-life protestor has been settled.
Ted Williams of Charleston and his daughter Katherine have conducted peaceful demonstrations at the Charleston Women's Center abortion clinic for seven years.
"The escorts there really don't like her to come. They don't want her there," Williams notes. "People who are going there to have abortions see a young kid and it makes them think, makes them change their mind, and they ask us questions and then we give them help and alternatives."
According to LifeNews.com, clinic employee Larry Center has targeted the protestors for years and regularly "screams vulgarities" at pro-lifers. On May 2, he attacked Katherine Williams.
"This particular Saturday he was really raring to go and just simply walked up to her, said something to her, and kicked the sign," Ted Williams explains.
South CarolinaThe police report says Katherine was struck in the foot and shin when Center kicked her sign. Center was prosecuted and was, in effect, given probation. However, he was ordered to not get within 15 feet of the girl for six months. Williams had hoped for a harsher outcome for Center, but he has told OneNewsNow he and his daughter have resumed demonstrations.
Williams says he and his daughter will continue their work because they have a higher calling.
After 30 years of implementation and evaluation, there is no compelling evidence of contraceptive distribution and instruction programs having had a sustained and meaningful effect on "protective" behaviors-that is, "consistent and correct condom use" in classroom-type settings. As a public health intervention method, contraceptive programs have simply failed American youth: An STD epidemic currently exists amongst young people. One in four teenage girls nationwide has an STD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the U.S. continues to have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world; and the toll from the negative psychological sequelae associated with adolescent sex is having an impact on mental health and the pursuit of life-goals.
Decreasing teen sexual activity is key to decreasing poverty, since single parenting is strongly linked to poverty. Research shows that the younger a teen starts having sex, the greater risk of pregnancy. A 2002 study from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy found that slmost half of all girls who have sex before age 15 get pregnant, The distribution of contraceptives does nothing to promote healthy relationships, healthy family formation, and marriage, where a greater probability for economic stability exists.
As well as increased risk of non-marital pregnancy, substance abuse and poor academic achievement are associated with teen sexual activity and can affect school drop-out rates. According to data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, those who were sexually active were three times more likely to be depressed than those who were abstinent. By contrast, teens who abstain from sex enhance their abilities to achieve short-term and long-term life goals.
Young people deserve a whole-person approach, including physical, emotional, and psychological dimensions. The primary prevention strategy, or risk-avoidance abstinence approach, provides for a health paradigm in which youth are better able to develop during adolescent years and from which society will benefit.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Monday rejected several Republican abortion-related amendments to the committee' health overhaul bill but adopted a Democratic amendment allowing health care providers who oppose abortion to contract with health plans, CQ HealthBeat reports. The committee voted mostly along party lines to reject an amendment by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) that would have prohibited abortion coverage in a health care exchange for participants who receive government-subsidized coverage. Democrats said that the language could have been used to restrict abortion coverage in private insurance plans. The amendment failed in an 11-12 vote, with Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) crossing party lines to support it. The committee also voted 11-12 to reject an amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) that would have specified that federal health reform legislation could not override state laws on parental notification when minors seek abortion services. Click here for the full article.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law significant pro-life legislation Monday, signaling a positive new direction from her predecessor and long-sought victory for life advocates.
While former Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed every abortion-limiting bill sent to her during six years in office, Brewer has already signed several pro-life measures in her first year as governor. These new laws include a ban on partial-birth abortion, a ban that prevents medical professionals other than doctors from performing surgical abortions, and a bill that protects the conscience rights of healthcare workers to refuse participation in an abortion. Click here for the full article.
Venezuela's Catholic bishops are denouncing a proposed legal reform that is likely to result in the legalization of abortion and homosexual "marriage" nationwide.
The bishops state that although the bill currently under consideration by the Venezuelan Congress claims to promote such values as equality and solidarity, "we have well-founded reasons to affirm that within it serious violations and irreparable damage is committed against fundamental rights and structures of Venezuelan society recognized and guaranteed in our Constitution."
The new law, they continue, "seriously offends rights that are consecrated and protected by our National Constitution, specifically the institutions of marriage and the family, and the superior interests of boys, girls, and adolescents consecrated in articles 75, 76, 77, and 78 of the Constitution, by legitimizing same-sex unions, awarding them the same juridical and patrimonial effects as those of matrimony." Click here for the full article.
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that she considered Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case that legalized abortion, to be "settled law."
When Sotomayor was asked how she felt about Roe v. Wade, she said "there is a right of privacy. The court has found it in various places in the Constitution," specifically, in the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure and the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection of the law. Click here for the full article.
As Congress prepares to consider President Obama's health care reform this week, the legislation is drawing opposition from both sides of the aisle. At a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, ten lawmakers warned that the current draft of the health care bill will force taxpayers, businesses and insurance providers to pay for abortions.
Reaction from Democrats first became public when a group of 19 congressmen, some of them "Blue Dog Democrats," sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the end of June.
In their letter, the group of 19 warned Pelosi that they would not vote for any health care reform bill that either mandates government coverage for abortion or allows the Health Benefits Advisory Committee to recommend abortion services be included under covered benefits or as part of a benefits package. Click here for the full article.
The office of President Obama's "science czar" John Holdren has responded to concerns Holdren co-authored a book which allegedly contained comments supporting coercive population control measures. A spokesman for the department said that Holdren disavowed such policies at his confirmation hearing.
Holdren is currently Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
In 1977, he co-authored the 1,000 page book "Ecoscience" with Paul and Anne Ehrlich. The book included several descriptions of possible population control measures, including the addition of "sterilants" to the water supply to prevent human conception. Click here for the full article.
A new report on the abortion-drug regimen known as RU-486 may leave a false impression of safety.
The report suggests that about one-fourth of the abortions in America are induced using RU-486, a two-drug combination that causes the death and abortion of an unborn baby. One of the concerns surrounding usage of that regimen has to do with the number of deaths and serious side effects, including infection.
Chris Gacek of the Family Research Council was asked if it is really safer. "What it's safer about is it's not causing these massive septic infections," he explains.
Such infections have claimed a number of lives. But another problem, Gacek notes, still persists -- excessive bleeding -- because that is just a fundamental part of the regimen.
"The drug induces sort of the chemical strangulation of the embryo or fetus, and then you have to dispose of the remains," says Gacek. "[T]he Misoprostol essentially strips the uterus of the baby and the products of conception -- [in other words] all the tissues that accompany the conception and help the pregnancy develop near the lining of the uterus and all that."
There has been no significant increase in abortions in the aftermath of the drug's introduction.
The report is based on research conducted at Planned Parenthood clinics across the U.S. Planned Parenthood is the nation's biggest provider of what the organization refers to as "medical abortions."
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee has posted on its website its version of the health care reform bill. It's called the "Affordable Health Choices Act," and, as promised, it contains a public health care option. The impact on other health insurance providers is reason enough to oppose a public health plan, but an even greater reason is the way it is going to undermine pro-life values.
The public plan's immediate and long-term threat to pro-life values is what makes it a non-starter. The plan's immediate threat to pro-life values is evident from its failure to provide any pro-life protections.
There is no protection for health care providers who, due to their faith convictions, cannot provide abortion or abortion referrals. There is no protection for pharmacy owners or workers who cannot in good conscience dispense abortion drugs. There is no restriction on abortion, either. There is no language in the bill that would prevent the public plan from paying for any abortion under any circumstance. The bill does not even prevent the eventual inclusion of assisted suicide as a benefit.
Some will argue that the bill doesn't have anything to say about these things one way or another, but that is precisely the point. The bill's failure to explicitly protect these pro-life values will be interpreted as a requirement to ignore them.
It is instructive to remember the struggle to stop abortion funding through Medicaid on this point. In Medicaid law what isn't explicitly prohibited is therefore required. This is why Medicaid began paying for abortion as a covered benefit when abortion was legalized in 1973. It took the Hyde Amendment in 1976 to change that by explicitly restricting the use of taxpayer funds for abortions except in the cases of rape, incest and danger to the life of the mother.
The Hyde Amendment continues to protect taxpayers from paying for elective abortions. However, the Hyde Amendment is itself on a death watch these days. The amendment must be approved annually. It is clear that many in Congress would happily drop the Hyde Amendment language if they could. Many of us thought Congress would try to omit the amendment last year. Furthermore, the Hyde Amendment doesn't protect other pro-life values, like conscience protections and banning assisted suicide.
Of further concern is that the bill authorizes the secretary of Health and Human Services to create the public health plan. The person currently sitting in that seat is Kathleen Sebelius, a long-time abortion rights protector. The fact that the benefits provided under the public plan will be decided by political appointees and entrenched bureaucrats out of public view should be enough reason to fear for pro-life values.
Given Congress' history of excess, the long-term prospects for pro-life values are bleak as well. An insurmountable problem with the public option is that the government will be deciding what the plan will cover. Can you imagine what a health plan built by the government will look like after a few years? It will be loaded down with every imaginable benefit and coverage. In his Wall Street Journal opinion piece, "Public Option: Son of Medicaid," Daniel Henninger writes, "Medicaid is a morass. Since the program's inception, Congress has loaded it up every few years with more notions of what to cover, shifting about 43% of the ever-upward cost onto someone else's tab, mainly the states." There is no reason to think that Congress will exercise any restraint with a new health plan.
As Congress loads more benefits onto the plan, the costs will skyrocket in the same way they have for Medicaid. While the government will certainly raise taxes and/or premiums to pay for the higher costs, it will eventually have to resort to the same rationing scheme under which people in England and Canada are suffering.
In England, it is illegal for doctors even to tell patients about drugs that the country's health care rationing body has determined to be too costly. It doesn't even matter if the drug has proven helpful to some people. If it costs too much per person, it can be disallowed for coverage, and doctors cannot even tell their patients the drug exists. In Canada a person literally can die while waiting for rationed treatment.
While the American health care system has its flaws, especially when it comes to abortion, it still places a much higher value on life than either the English or Canadian plans. I suppose rationing is one way to keep health care "affordable," but I'm sure it's not what most Americans want. If England and Canada can't figure out how to make a public plan work without rationing, there is no reason at all to think our government will do any better. We must continue to move pro-life values forward, not backward.
Making it possible for every person to get and keep health insurance is a pro-life value worthy of everyone's support. But I do not believe it is necessary to throw our other pro-life values under the bus in order to achieve that worthy goal.
