JivinJehoshaphat

Sharon Lerner: Clueless as can be?

2009-11-23T10:56:00.000-08:00

Sharon Lerner has a piece in the Nation on health care reform which attempts to create this storyline featuring pro-choice organizations as poor, little babies who got bullied by the big, mean prolifers.

Stupak is even more of an insult to pro-choice groups when you consider what they really wanted: to have abortion be treated as an integral part of health care. Rather than being paid for with dollars that are practically fingerprinted at every turn, abortion, in this view, would be more like a vasectomy--a routine, if personally delicate, outpatient procedure. But hoping not to muddy the overall health reform process, advocates tried, at first, to leave abortion politics out of the legislation. The tack was eminently reasonable; health reform, after all, was a much bigger issue. Why did abortion have to get mentioned at all?

Ummm.... because if abortion wasn’t explicitly excluded from health care reform then it would be included. That’s what happened with Medicare until the Hyde amendment. Knowledgeable prolifers and pro-choicers are both aware of this. That’s why pro-choicers didn’t want it mentioned. That was their strategy. They thought by not mentioning it, they could make it “an integral part of health care.”

By the end of June, they had their answer. Nineteen Democrats, including Bart Stupak, sent a letter to Pelosi announcing they would not "we cannot support any health care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan," making it clear that the high-minded effort to keep a fight over abortion out of healthcare reform hadn't worked.

Huh?? The high-minded effort to keep a fight about abortion out of health care didn’t work because prolife Democrats wanted an amendment to keep abortion out of health care??

Though pro-choice and women's groups didn't like the Capps amendment, they, once again chose to be cooperative and agreed to the compromise.

Lois Capps has a 100% pro-choice voting record. Many pro-choice groups support the Capps amendment. No prolife groups do. How is that a compromise?

"It would have been perfect if an anti-choice member had authored" Capps, notes Laura Hessburg, Senior Health Policy Advisor at the National Partnership for Women and Families. Then, perhaps, the public might have seen it as the compromise it was.

Well, why then didn’t any prolife member author it? That’s right - because it’s a pro-choice amendment and it’s not a compromise.

Lerner laments the unwillingness of pro-choice groups never vocally and publicly fought to make abortion an integral part of health care but never seems to grasp that pro-choice organization were trying to make abortion part of health care but were doing so in a quiet, sneaky manner.

We also learn the U.S. Catholic bishop played dirty by “urging parishioners to call Washington and distributed talking points to be thrown into Sunday sermons.” I know. Deplorable.

More research with amniotic stem cells

2009-11-23T10:31:00.000-08:00

Science Daily has information on new research from Wake Forest's Anthony Atala on versatility of amniotic stem cells

Atala stopped short of calling the cells pluripotent, which means the ability to form many cell types. He said while the cells meet some of the characteristics of pluripotency, such as versatility, they do not form tumors when implanted in animals, which is also considered a characteristic. The fact that the amnion cells are less likely to form tumors may be one advantage that they have over embryonic stem cells in their potential for clinical use.

Life Links 11/23/09

2009-11-23T08:12:00.000-08:00

Senator Ben Nelson says he’ll vote against health care reform if isn’t amended to his liking. One of his disputes with the bill is it’s language on abortion funding.

Numerous prolifers, evangelicals and Catholics, have signed on to the Manhattan Declaration which is a statement about the sanctity of life, marriage and conscience rights. The statement was drafted by Robert George, Timothy George and Chuck Colson.

In 2007, Bishop Thomas Tobin requested that Representative Patrick Kennedy not present himself for communion. Kennedy recently went public about his conversation and also claimed that Bishop Toobin told me that he had instructed all the priests in his diocese not to give Communion to Kennedy. Toobin is denying Kennedy’s additional claim.

Rebecca Taylor notes some peculiar new ways couples with frozen embryos are dealing with the children they don’t want to let another couple adopt and don’t want to donate for research.

What is most obvious is that infertile couples are not thinking about the consequences of producing extra embryos with IVF. They are then left with a moral dilemma no parent should have to face. It is critical that Catholics, religious and lay alike, remind infertile couples of this impending dilemma BEFORE they get swept up in the IVF machine. It is not politically correct, and they may never speak to you again, but it is so very necessary.

In Europe, doctors discovered that a man who was thought to be unconscious for 23 years was conscious the entire time.

Doctors in Zolder, Belgium, used the internationally accepted Glasgow Coma Scale to assess his eye, verbal and motor responses. But each time he was graded incorrectly.

Only a re-evaluation of his case at the University of Liege discovered that he had lost control of his body but was still fully aware of what was happening.

He is never likely to leave hospital, but as well as his computer he now has a special device above his bed which lets him read books while lying down.

Mr Houben said: 'I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me - it was my second birth.

'I want to read, talk with my friends via the computer and enjoy my life now that people know I am not dead.'

Dr Laureys's new study claims that patients classed as in a vegetative state are often misdiagnosed.

'Anyone who bears the stamp of "unconscious" just one time hardly ever gets rid of it again,' he said.

HT: The Corner

Life Links 11/20/09

2009-11-20T04:46:00.000-08:00

Wesley Smith notes a changed clause in Senator Reid’s health care bill could force insurance providers in states where assisted suicide is legal to include assisted suicide in their plans.

If assisted suicide, or even euthanasia, are legally considered forms of “end of life care” in a particular state–as it is now in Oregon, Washington, and Montana–it seems to me that the area’s community health insurance option would be required to provide “access” to it under this clause. How else can the provision be read? And because it would have been passed later in time, this clause could be construed to subsume existing federal law that prevents federal funds from being used in assisted suicide.

According to The Hill, Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) is opposed to the abortion language in Reid’s health care bill.

"We have looked at the language," Nelson told The Hill. "That language is not language that I would prefer."

"I think you need to have it eminently clear that no dollars that are federal tax dollars, directly or indirectly, are used to pay for abortions and it needs to be totally clear. [It’s] not clear enough, I don’t think," Nelson said.

Speaker Pelosi thinks the abortion issue won’t stop healthcare reform legislation and that she has a plan to bring prolife Democrats into the fold.

"I believe that there's plenty area for common ground," Pelosi told NPR's Renee Montagne. "We all agree that there will be no federal funding for abortion."….

When asked whether she had a specific plan to bring moderate Democrats around on the abortion issue, Pelosi said: "Yes ... but if I talk about it on the radio, then I won't be able to make it happen."

Rep. Lois Capps has a weak editorial in Politico attempting to argue that her abortion language is consistent with the federal government's current policy regarding the funding of abortion. She assumes that no insurance policy in the exchange would create a plan with abortion, thinks that not taxing income is equivalent to providing someone with a federal subsidy, and claims (without giving any names - is she refering to pro-choicers Bart Gordon and Zack Space?) that prolifers on the Energy and Commerce Committee rejected the Stupak amendment.

Regarding legislation to provide transparency to embryonic stem cell research in Michigan, the editorial board of the State News (Michigan State's newspaper) has a much wiser take than the Grand Rapids Press. The GR Press editorial is so bad and factually inaccurate that I considered dumping my subscription.

Pro-Life Blog Awards

2009-11-19T10:31:00.000-08:00

American Life League has opened nominations for the 2010 Pro-Life Blog Awards.

Nominations are due by December 7. You can nominate your favorite prolife blogger (hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge) here.

Voters will then have between December 7 and December 20 to vote for their favorites.

Embryonic stem cell “desperately” need a success

2009-11-19T09:54:00.000-08:00

So says Advanced Cell Technology scientific director Robert Lanza while promoting his company’s attempt to get the FDA to approve another clinical trial using cells created from embryonic stem cells. This clinical trial would attempt to treat blindness. ACT’s other embryonic stem cell clinical trial (which plans on testing the safety of cells in paralyzed patients) has been postponed another year because cysts were discovered at the injection sites during animal studies.

"It has been over a decade since human embryonic stem cells were first discovered. The field desperately needs a big clinical success," Lanza said.

Life Links 11/19/09

2009-11-19T07:43:00.001-08:00

Americans United for Life has posted a summary of Senator Reid’s health care reform legislation (2.5 MB PDF) as it related to abortion. Their conclusion:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid last night unveiled a health care bill which provides for an unprecedented expansion of federally-funded abortion. The bill includes pro-abortion language and mirrors the false compromise Capps Amendment from the House debate — it allows the public option to include abortion coverage and provides federal subsidies for private plans which cover abortion.

National Right to Life’s press release calls Reid’s abortion funding language “completely unacceptable.”

Operation Rescue has posted Caitlin Bruce’s lawsuit against Michigan abortionist Alberto Hodari. Bruce claims Hodari and an assistant performed an abortion on her after she told them to stop.

The RH Reality Check blog has posted an article originally published in Ms. Magazine about how one federal employee named D.J. Feldman couldn’t get her health insurance to cover her aborting her child with anencephaly.

Feldman is speaking out now because of her outrage that the notorious Stupak-Pitts amendment to the House health reform measure would extend such federal bans on abortion coverage to the millions of women who are enrolled in the private insurance market.

But wait....if the Stupak amendment extends the federal ban on abortion coverage to federally-subsidized plans then isn’t it keeping the status quo on federal government’s policy towards funding or subsidizing abortion?

Life Links 11/18/09

2009-11-18T10:12:00.000-08:00

No surprise here. According to a CNN poll, the majority of Americans don’t want abortion funding included in health care reform.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday morning indicates that 61 percent of the public opposes using public money for abortions for women who can not afford the procedure, with 37 percent in favor of allowing the use of federal funds.

And by a 51 percent to 45 percent margin, those questioned in the survey think that women who get abortions should pay the full costs out of their own pocket, even if they have private health insurance and no federal funds are involved. The 6-point difference is within the poll's sampling error.

Bart Stupak has an editorial responding to a misleading Detroit Free Press editorial about his amendment.

The Free Press argues this amendment makes it harder for poor women to obtain abortion procedures. But under current policy, the poor receive their health care through Medicaid and cannot have taxpayer-funded abortions. Our amendment simply keeps this policy consistent.

Segregating funds has never been allowed under Hyde language. For example, federal employee health plans offer private health insurance policies to federal employees. Federal employees pay a portion of their health premiums with the government paying the balance. Yet federal employees cannot put the funds they contribute in a separate account to be used to cover abortion services. The Hyde precedent is very clear.

Umbilical cord stem cells have been used to reverse cerebral palsy in a Colorado girl.

Prolifers in Chicago are protesting Chicago’s new 8 foot bubble ordinance.

Life Links 11/17/09

2009-11-17T04:46:00.000-08:00

Stephanie Simon has an article in the Wall Street Journal which is sure to get more than a few pro-choicers fuming. Simon notes the Stupak amendment is unlikely to change how abortion is paid for by the vast majority of women.

Although the bill has stirred passions on both sides of the abortion-rights debate -- which are likely to be echoed when the Senate takes up its version -- the practical effect of the restrictions will be limited, statistics suggest and some experts in family-planning issues say....

Analysts don't expect the loss of insurance coverage to affect the number of clinics providing abortions. Perhaps the biggest impact of the House bill is that it would bar millions of low-income women who are currently uninsured from obtaining abortion coverage in the future.

Still, under the House bill, these women wouldn't be any worse off financially than they are now, since they are already paying for abortion out-of-pocket. Indeed, subsidies in the bill could help low-income women obtain insurance that covers other reproductive care, including contraception, which can cost hundreds of dollars a year.

Richard Epstein on the Stupak amendment:

Like it or not, the Stupak-Pitts amendment makes no effort to upset the status quo under Harris. It blocks embedding the abortion subsidy in the "affordability credit" for health benefit plans sold on the public exchange. And it takes the same position with respect to nonfederal contributions to such programs as Medicaid that also spark federal subsidies.

This limitation, however, allows participants on the public exchange to get supplemental abortion coverage at their own expense outside the exchange. There is nothing that prevents pro-choice groups from paying those services out of their own pockets. Ironically, even this formal segregation of funds does not stop the indirect subsidy of abortions: Any participant on the public exchange could use her savings to purchase that additional coverage.

On Friday, National Right to Life's Douglas Johnson was on C-SPAN discussing the Stupak amendment.

Voting and Abortion Rates

2009-11-16T11:44:00.000-08:00

Michael Barone has an interesting post comparing the percentage of a state's vote for Barack Obama and the state's abortion rate. Not surprisingly states with high abortion rates tended to vote in higher percentages for Obama while states with lower abortion rates tended to have lower percentages of voters who voted for Obama.

It would interesting to see these numbers on a county by county basis for various states.

What? Embryonic stem cells aren’t going to cure Parkinson’s?

2009-11-16T10:38:00.001-08:00

The blog of the Center for Genetics and Society shares a bit of a piece by Constance Holden in Science entitled, “Fetal Cells Again?” which discusses the rise and fall of the hopes that cell-based therapies could cure Parkinson’s.

A half-dozen years ago, in the heat of political and scientific excitement over hES [human embryonic stem] cells, Parkinson's disease was regarded as one of the prime candidates for stem cell therapy. But even as iPS [induced pluripotent stem] cells have opened new vistas, the prospect of cell therapy trials has been steadily receding as scientists have gained new appreciation of both the difficulties of cell culture and the complexity of the disease itself....

Stem cell treatment "looked most hopeful when people were treating [Parkinson's] just as a dopamine disease," says [neurologist C. Warren] Olanow. Degeneration of dopamine-producing cells is not the first or the only symptom of Parkinson's, however. It's become increasingly clear that, as neurologist J. William Langston of the Parkinson's Institute and Clinical Center in Sunnyvale, California, has put it, "Parkinsonism (that is, dopamine-related movement problems) is just the tip of the iceberg."...

The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research has also become much more cautious about the promise of cell therapy. The foundation is now placing its bets on new drug development and supports very little stem cell research. "I was totally naïve when I came to the foundation" in 2002, says CEO Katie Hood. "All my exposure was pop media; I thought it was all about stem cells." Now, she says, "I have not totally lost hope on cell replacement," but "I just don't think it's a near-term hope."

Life Links 11/16/09

2009-11-16T08:07:00.000-08:00

President Obama is such a shameless liar.

In a nationally televised address to Congress he claimed “under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions” when the legislation at that time included abortion funding. Now that the legislation has been amended to remove abortion funding via the Stupak amendment and prevents abortion coverage from being federally subsidized, Obama is sending out David Axelrod to act like the Stupak amendment changes the “status quo” and that Obama’s original promise was that he wouldn’t change the status quo.

"The president has said repeatedly, and he said in his speech to Congress, that he doesn't believe that this bill should change the status quo as it relates to the issue of abortion," Axelrod told CNN. "He's going to work with the Senate and the House to try to ensure that at the end of the day the status quo is not changed."

Excuse me, but how on earth is a government run health care insurance program in which the federal government subsidizes health care plans which include abortion the status quo to what we have now?

Second, when did Obama ever promise to keep the status quo? He even attacked the status quo in his health care speech to Congress.

And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now.

At the Corner, Mike Potemra has some thoughts on Axelrod’s interview.

They could barely get this thing through the House, even when the pro-life Democrats had the Stupak Amendment to sweeten the deal. Now they appear to be willing to lose the health-care bill — and it’s not even in defense of their underlying principle of abortion rights. They are willing to risk losing the bill simply because the bill does not expand access to abortion as much as they would like it to.

That’s a devotion that borders on religious fervor. There are many things that have been called make-or-break for the Obama presidency: winning Afghanistan, preventing another 9/11, turning the economy around. Here’s another thing that could break his presidency: torpedoing his No. 1 agenda item, in obeisance to a single-issue special-interest lobby that is losing support from the American people.

Abortionist Willie Parker makes the mistake of admitting the Stupak amendment “mirrors” current abortion-funding regulations. I guess he didn’t get the “status quo” memo.

I practice in Washington, D.C., where women on Medicaid, the public health-insurance plan for the very poor, don’t have abortion coverage except in cases of rape, incest, or a threat to their life. The Stupak amendment mirrors these Medicaid restrictions, which also currently apply to women in the military and female federal employees, no matter where they live. These patients—as well as the women who can’t afford any insurance or have insurance that doesn’t cover abortion—give my colleagues and me a preview of what women’s health care would look like in Rep. Bart Stupak’s America.

The Choose Life club at McGill University has had their status as a club suspended. A vote to completely revoke their status almost passed.

During council, Rebecca Dooley, VP (University Affairs), indicated that four complaints against Choose Life have been brought to the attention of the Student Equity Committee since it was granted club status last year. The motion to suspend incorporated a clause which would send the club for evaluation by the Equity Committee.

An amendment was added and stipulated that the club would meet with the Committee to develop a document that would allow for the expression of a pro-life viewpoint while remaining in line with the SSMU constitution and equity policy.

American Right to Life is certainly coming up with worse and worse ways of attempting to eliminate abortion in the next decade. Here’s another web site devoted to attacking prolifers who aren’t on their personhood bandwagon. The site claims Sarah Palin is “officially pro-choice and stands against the God-given right to life of the unborn.” We also learn that President George W. Bush had “an enormous pro-abortion influence.”

Life Links 11/13/09

2009-11-13T05:12:00.001-08:00

The Republican National Committee Chariman Michael Steele has called for the removal of abortion coverage from their health insurance plan after Politico discovered that abortion was covered.

The silliness of pro-choice arguments regarding the Stupak amendment continues.

Wendy Norris is now claiming money was another probable reason for the Catholic bishops support of the Stupak amendment. Despite the vast majority of abortions being performed in abortion clinics and not hospitals, Norris thinks the bishops wanted to exclude federal subsidies for abortion so they could “omit a competitive advantage secular hospitals …..can use to simultaneously market their services to the expected influx of newly insured patients…”

Jill from Feministe apparently has no clue what a moral objection is. I think she really has no idea that there is a difference between preference claims and moral claims.

Law professor Marci Hamilton thinks the Stupak amendment “violates the Constitution’s separation of church and state” because profilers are religious and the U.S. bishops pushed for it. At the Corner, John Pitney points out a rather large problem with this argument.

The Chicago Tribune has an article on IVF parents struggling to decide what to do with embryos they don’t want to implant. It has this quote from IVF mother Adriana Potter who favors donating her embryonic children for medical research.

"Think about it. The only way we got this far with IVF is because there was research in the past," she said. "There were sacrifices to help families like us have kids…..

And which sacrifices were those? That’s right. Human embryos. So it’s okay to sacrifice some children so you can have kids? And then because others sacrificed their children, it’s your duty to sacrifice children you don’t want back to research.

Michelman and Kissling whine about Stupak amendment

2009-11-12T11:37:00.000-08:00

Former NARAL president Kate Michelman and former Catholics for Choice leader Frances Kissling have an editorial today in the New York Times where they bitterly complain about how women won’t be able to get federally-subsidized abortions and how the Democratic party isn’t completely beholden to abortion activists. It’s almost a lament for the power they thought the 2008 election would bring them. They’re downtrodden.

Many House members who support abortion rights decided reluctantly to accept this ban, which is embodied in the Stupak-Pitts amendment. They say the tradeoff was necessary to advance the right to guaranteed health care. They say they will fight another day for a woman’s right to choose.

Perhaps. But they can’t ignore the underlying shift that has taken place in recent years. The Democratic majority has abandoned its platform and subordinated women’s health to short-term political success. In doing so, these so-called friends of women’s rights have arguably done more to undermine reproductive rights than some of abortion’s staunchest foes. That Senate Democrats are poised to allow similar anti-abortion language in their bill simply underscores the degree of the damage that has been done.

They also throw down the gauntlet on Democrats who won’t work to scrub out the Stupak amendment.

If Democrats do not commit themselves to defeating the amendment, then they will face an uncompromising effort by Democratic women to defeat them, regardless of the cost to the party’s precious majority.

It’s almost like Michelman and Kissling somehow still don’t understand that the Democrats will never in the foreseeable future have a majority in the House unless their majority includes a fair number of prolife Dems. It’s like they’ve read to many of their own biased polls to abandon the insane idea that their positions (favoring abortion on demand and tax-funded abortions) are positions held by the majority of Americans.

Life Links 11/12/09

2009-11-12T09:25:00.000-08:00

Is infamous Michigan abortionist Alberto Hodari closing up (at least some of) his abortion mills? LifeSite and LifeNews both have the account of Flint Right to Life’s Judy Climer who claims his Flint clinic has a for sale sign.

Hodari’s Womancare clinic in Southgate is also for sale.

Maybe he needs some cash to pay for all his legal troubles.

In Japan, a group of scientists implanted the nucleus of an older woman’s egg into the cytoplasm of a younger woman’s egg and then fertilized those eggs in a test tube.

Americans United for Life’s blog has a good post noting how the current status quo for abortion in health care consists of not only federal dollars not going to pay for abortion but also that federal dollars aren’t used to subsidize abortion in the insurance plans of federal employees.

Also, federal dollars are prohibited from subsidizing private plans that cover abortion. Private plans participating in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) cannot offer coverage of abortion because the plans are subsidized by the government (and, thus, by taxpayer funds). In other words, federal employees cannot purchase an insurance plan that includes abortion coverage.

FOX News interviews Professor Daniel Offen, BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Inc, chief scientist Prof. Daniel Offen regarding their research into the possibility of ALS treatments using adult stem cells.

Kathleen Parker’s most recent column is about forced abortion in China.

Late-term abortions are problematic, but the Chinese are nothing if not efficient. On one Web site for Chinese obstetricians and gynecologists, doctors recently traded tips in a dispassionate discussion titled: "What if the infant is still alive after induced labor?" ChinaAid provided a translation of a thread regarding an eight-month-old fetus that survived the procedure.

"Xuexia" wrote: "Actually, you should have punctured the fetus' skull." Another poster, "Damohuyang," wrote that most late-term infants died during induced labor, some lived and "would be left in trash cans. Some of them could still live for one to two days."

.....

But Littlejohn hopes Obama will "truly represent American values, including our strong commitment to human rights." She is also calling on Planned Parenthood and NARAL to speak up for reproductive choice in China.

On this much, both sides of the abortion issue can agree: Forced abortion is not a choice. Averting our gaze from China's horrific abuse of women is.

Bishop Thomas Toobin shreds Congressman Patrick Kennedy’s excuses for voting in favor of abortion.

Your rejection of the Church’s teaching on abortion falls into a different category – it’s a deliberate and obstinate act of the will; a conscious decision that you’ve re-affirmed on many occasions. Sorry, you can’t chalk it up to an “imperfect humanity.” Your position is unacceptable to the Church and scandalous to many of our members. It absolutely diminishes your communion with the Church.

Life Links 11/11/09

2009-11-11T10:23:00.000-08:00

Liberals are making a lot of inaccurate and incredibly stupid claims about the Stupak amendment.

Carlton Veazey from the Religious Coaltion for Reproductive Choice claims the Stupak amendment is "an encroachment on the separation of religion and state and an affront to a basic constitutional principle."

Senator Tom Harkin thinks it’s a slippery slope which could lead to the federal government not allowing people with federal housing loans to have abortions.

In a guest post at the RH Reality Check, Robin Marty thinks the Stupak amendment will prevent women who’ve experienced miscarriages from having their dead children removed.

Apparently, the signers of Diane DeGette’s letter promising to oppose health care reform if it includes the Stupak amendment don't want their names to become public. Bawk...bawk....

Politico is featuring an arena on the question of abortion funding in health care reform legislation. Bradley Smith makes a good point when he writes,

Ultimately, the biggest problem with nationalizing health care (let's not kid ourselves, that's what these bills do, and that's the objective) is that it pits Americans against one another. The pro-choicers have just learned a bitter lesson (well, actually, they received a lesson, but I don't think they learned it), which is that they may not get to control the benefit packages. This will be true everywhere, though. Under nationalized care, you want my grandmother to die (or at least we can say that you will benefit if my grandmother dies, and desires tend to follow incentives), because your costs go up if she's kept alive with expensive care. That other guy wants your baby to die (or be aborted - will Catholic Bishops learn the true lesson of their triumph this week when they have to decide on the final bill?) rather than live with birth abnormalities that require expensive health care. The reality of human nature, noted by Adam Smith more than 200 years ago, is that we take a prick on our own finger much more seriously than the deaths of thousands halfway across the world. The reality of government health care is that people will want theirs from the common pot, and they will vote to get it, whatever it does to their neighbors.

Life Links 11/10/09

2009-11-10T05:04:00.000-08:00

In the Wall Street Journal, William McGurn has a piece on Bart Stupak appropriately entitled, "The man who made Pelosi cry uncle." It sounds like the prolife Democrats aren't going to accept the Stupak amendment being stripped from health care reform.

As it is, Democrats now have to make some decisions that may anger their Planned Parenthood wing. The fight itself will be interesting, judging from a claim by Diana DeGette (D., Col.) in yesterday's Washington Post that 40 Democrats will vote against a final bill unless the Stupak amendment is stripped out. Of course, if it is stripped out, that will put even more pressure on those 64 Democrats who voted for the amendment.

"We won because [the Democrats] need us," says Mr. Stupak. "If they are going to summarily dismiss us by taking the pen to that language, there will be hell to pay. I don't say it as a threat, but if they double-cross us, there will be 40 people who won't vote with them the next time they need us—and that could be the final version of this bill."

Wouldn't be amazing if pro-choice desire for federal subsidized abortion sunk health care reform?

Surprise. Surprise. The New York Times opposes the Stupak amendment. I do like this paragraph though:

The highly restrictive language was easily approved by a 240-to-194 vote and incorporated into the overall bill, which squeaked through by a tally of 220 to 215. It was depressing evidence of the power of anti-abortion forces to override a reasonable compromise.

The Times also praises pro-choice Democrats for "sensibly cho(osing) to keep the reform process moving ahead." Except that more than 40 of them have already promised to prevent the final passage if the Stupak amendment isn't removed. Why are prolife representatives somehow less than sensible because they had they had the majority of votes?

Natalie Fohl, president of the prolife students club at McGill University, has an editorial detailing attempts to revoke her club's status.

Obama Opposes the Stupak Amendment

2009-11-10T04:49:00.000-08:00

In an interview with ABC News, President Obama says more work needs to be done on how abortion is handled in health care because pro-choicers are mad.

Saying the bill cannot change the status quo regarding the ban on federally funded abortions, the president said, "There are strong feelings on both sides" about an amendment passed Saturday and added to the legislation, "and what that tells me is that there needs to be some more work before we get to the point where we're not changing the status quo."

Obama is also under the delusion that a health care bill can be crafted which will please both prolifers and pro-choicers.

In an exclusive television interview in the Map Room of the White House, Obama told ABC News' Jake Tapper that he was confident that the final legislation will ensure that "neither side feels that it's being betrayed."

"I want to make sure that the provision that emerges meets that test -- that we are not in some way sneaking in funding for abortions, but, on the other hand, that we're not restricting women's insurance choices," he said.

I don't see how it's possible to placate both side when one side believes abortion is a crucial part of health care and thinks it should be treated no different than any other service.

If you create a public plan which pays for or subsidizes the health care of millions of Americans, abortion is going to be paid for either wholly or partially (through subsidies) with public funds or it's not. The Stupak amendment makes sure it's not.

DeGette Letter Vows to Oppose Health Unless Stupak Amendment Removed

2009-11-09T12:33:00.000-08:00

The office of Diane DeGette (D-Colorado) has post this letter which has apparently been signed by more than 40 Democrats who claim they will oppose the final passage of health care reform legislation if it contains the Stupak amendment.

Overheard

2009-11-09T11:23:00.000-08:00

One of the Abortioneers discusses why she "loves abortion."

What do I mean when I say I love abortion? To me, there is absolutely nothing wrong or surprising with the supposed "controversial" statement. I love women, therefore I love abortion. Abortion is a part of women's lives.

Life Links 11/9/09

2009-11-09T09:21:00.000-08:00

I share Ramesh Ponnuru’s thoughts about the possibility of Republicans voting “present” on the Stupak amendment to prevent it’s passage. Bad idea.

Democrat Diane DeGette claims she has more than 40 House Democrats who will vote against the final version health care reform legislation if it includes the Stupak amendment.

At the Huffington Post, Jessica Arons doesn’t seem to understand what insurance is for in the first place.

Stupak and his allies claim his Amendment doesn't ban abortion from the Exchange because it allows plans to offer and women to purchase extra, stand-alone insurance known as a rider to cover abortion services. Hopefully the irony of this is immediately apparent: Stupak wants women to plan for a completely unexpected event.

Ummmm..... Isn’t that what all types of insurance are for? Finding ways of planning ahead for unexpected events like car crashes, house fires, and unplanned physical conditions.

Sarah Palin rallied prolifers in Wisconsin on Friday night.

Palin didn’t mention President Obama by name, but did take a shot at him for opposing an abortion-related measure as an Illinois state senator and more than once mocked his catch phrase.

Politco reporter Jonathon Martin apparently doesn’t want to get into the details about President Obama’s opposition to legislation which provided protection to infants who survived abortions.

Apparently, newborn babies cry in their native tongue because of prenatal exposure to language.

French newborns tend to cry with rising melody patterns, slowly increasing in pitch from the beginning to the end, whereas German newborns seem to prefer falling melody patterns, findings that are both consistent with differences between the languages.

This suggests infants begin picking up elements of language in the womb, long before their first babble or coo.

What is Vice President Joe Biden spending his money on?

2009-11-09T09:19:00.000-08:00

How can a guy who gives next to nothing to charity and has made in the six figures for 3+ decades have a net worth of $27,000? Does he have all his money in his houses since “federal financial disclosure laws don’t require members to list the value of their personal residences” or is he just one of the most incompetent managers of money in world?

HT: Joe Carter

Health Care Reform Passes with the Stupak Amendment

2009-11-09T07:29:00.000-08:00

By now you’ve probably heard that the House’s health care reform bill passed but only after the House was allowed to vote on and pass the Stupak Amendment to remove abortion funding. The New York Times has an article on what happened behind the scenes. Basically, if the Stupak amendment didn’t get a vote, then the Nancy Pelosi didn’t have the votes to pass health care reform.

Her attempts at winning them over had failed, and Ms. Pelosi, the first woman speaker and an ardent defender of abortion rights, had no choice but to do the unthinkable. To save the health care bill she had to give in to abortion opponents in her party and allow them to propose tight restrictions barring any insurance plan that is purchased with government subsidies from covering abortions.

Here’s the roll call vote on the Stupak Amendment. The text provides that “No funds authorized or appropriated by this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) may be used to pay for any abortion or to Cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion, except in the case where a woman suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that would, as certified by a physician, place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself, or unless the pregnancy is the result of an' act of rape or incest.”

What’s interesting in many reactions from abortion advocates is that they act like the Stupak Amendment makes it illegal to purchase insurance which covers abortion. In the New York Times article, Congresswoman Rose DeLauro even claims the Stupak Amendment prohibits women “from access to an abortion even if they pay for it with their own money.”

NARAL’s press release claims the Stupak Amendment “would have the effect of denying women the right to use their own personal private funds to purchase an insurance plan with abortion coverage in the new health system — a radical departure from the status quo.”

Planned Parenthood’s press release seems to also criticize a woman’s decision making when it attempts to explain why having women buy abortion riders is such a bad idea:

“But such abortion riders do not exist because women do not plan to have unintended pregnancies or medically complicated pregnancies that require ending the pregnancy. These so-called ‘abortion riders,’ which would be the only insurance policy through which abortion care could be covered in the ‘exchange,’ are discriminatory and illogical.”

So the Stupak Amendment is “discriminatory and illogical” because women choose not to purchase abortion riders?

A major battle has been won but the fight to make certain that health care reform doesn’t include abortion funding is far from over as abortion advocates are sure to push for it to be included in the Senate version of the bill and in the conference committee.

Pensacola Abortion Clinic Closes

2009-11-06T04:54:00.000-08:00

One of Pensacola's two abortion clinics has closed after being unable to pay a $413,000 fine for having an expired lab license for 413 days.

In January, a survey by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration determined that the center's lab license had been expired for 413 days. A fine of $1,000 per day was imposed.

AHCA is responsible for the licensing and regulation of health facilities and for administration of Medicaid.

Since January, the abortion clinic has remained in operation while the lab has been shut down.

But on Oct. 30, still unable to pay the fine, the clinic voluntarily shut down, said Tiffany Vause, AHCA press secretary.

AHCA lawyers have offered a settlement agreement, which has not been accepted or rejected, she said. She would not reveal the amount.

Is child-killing pro-family?

2009-11-05T11:41:00.000-08:00

John Derbyshire is wondering what prolifers think about one blogger’s contention that abortion is “pro-family” because he believes abortions reduce the number of single-mother families (he likely hasn’t looked for any historical proof of this).

Let’s consider another way we could reduce the number of single-mother families: killing the born children of single mothers.

Would that be pro-family?

Of course not because killing off some family members is not a proper means of strengthening families.

What is it with some pro-choicers like Derbyshire and their complete inability to think for a minute about how prolife people view unborn children? It baffles me.