While the House was busy introducing a bill to ban abortion funding, one Senate committee was passing a bill to permanently expand it. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), a big proponent of the State Department’s team of family planning” globe trotters, slipped an amendment into the foreign appropriations bill that would make overseas abortion funding a steady fixture of U.S. spending. Under his language, the Mexico City Policy—which blocks our government from giving financial aid to any overseas group that promotes abortion—would be completely abolished. (Back in January, President Obama signed an executive order allowing this funding to flow temporarily.)
Of course, this isn’t the first time New Jersey ‘s Senator has tried this stunt. Last year, he snuck in a similar amendment, only to watch it die on the Senate floor. This time, Sen. Lautenberg’s proposal was voted out of the Appropriations Committee (18-12) along with the rest of the bill.
Unfortunately for pro-lifers, there is plenty more to be concerned about in the overall legislation. Not only does it make abortion a permanent U.S. export, but it also funnels millions more taxpayer dollars to groups like the U.N. Population Fund, which has a history of endorsing barbaric laws like China’s one-child policy. On top of the $55 million to UNFPA, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)—the same agency that’s illegally lobbying to legalize abortion in Kenya’s new constitution—would get a $24 million raise. (To help finance other vote-buying schemes, perhaps?) Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) seemed frustrated along with the other Republicans. “It’s us funding abortions overseas,” he said. “There are a lot of people in the country that find this deeply offensive.” It’s just too ba d that none of those people seem to work for this administration.
WASHINGTON (July 13, 2010) – The Obama Administration will give Pennsylvania $160 million to set up a new “high-risk” insurance program under a provision of the federal health care legislation enacted in March — and has quietly approved a plan submitted by an appointee of Governor Edward Rendell (D) under which the new program will cover any abortion that is legal in Pennsylvania.
The high-risk pool program is one of the new programs created by the sweeping health care legislation (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) that President Obama signed into law on March 23. The law authorizes $5 billion in federal funds for the program, which will cover as many as 400,000 people when it is implemented nationwide.
“The Obama Administration will give Pennsylvania $160 million in federal tax funds, which we’ve discovered will pay for insurance plans that cover any legal abortion,” said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of right-to-life organizations in all 50 states. “This is just the first proof of the phoniness of President Obama’s assurances that federal funds would not subsidize abortion — but it will not be the last.”
An earlier version of the health care legislation, passed by the House of Representatives in November 2009, contained a provision (the Stupak-Pitts Amendment) that would have prevented federal funds from subsidizing abortion or insurance coverage of abortion in any of the programs created by the bill, including the high-risk pool program. But President Obama opposed that pro-life provision, and it was not included in the bill later approved by both houses and signed into law. An executive order signed by the President on March 24, 2010 did not contain effective barriers to federal funding of abortion, and did not even mention the high-risk pool program.
“President Obama successfully opposed including language in the bill to prevent federal subsidies for abortions, and now the Administration is quietly advancing its abortion-expanding agenda through administrative decisions such as this, which they hope will escape broad public attention,” Johnson said.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has emphasized that the high-risk pool program is a federal program and that the states will not incur any cost. On May 11, 2010, in a letter to Democratic and Republican congressional leaders on implementation of the new law, DHHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote that “states may choose whether and how they participate in the program, which is funded entirely by the federal government.”
Details of the high-risk pool plans for most states are not yet available. But on June 28, Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Joel Ario (a member of the appointed cabinet of Governor Edward Rendell, a Democrat) issued a press release announcing that the federal Department of Health and Human Services had approved his agency’s proposal for implementing the new program in Pennsylvania. “The state will receive $160 million to set up the program, which will provide coverage to as many as 5,600 people between now and 2014,” according to the release. “The plan’s benefit package will include preventive care, physician services, diagnostic testing, hospitalization, mental health services, prescription medications and much more, with subsidized premiums of $283 a month.”
Examination of the detailed Pennsylvania plan, reveals that the “much more” will include insurance coverage of any legal abortion.
The section on abortion (see page 14) asserts that “elective abortions are not covered.” However, that statement proves to be a red herring, because the operative language does not define “elective.” Rather, the proposal specifies that the coverage “includes only abortions and contraceptives that satisfy the requirements of” several specific statutes, the most pertinent of which is 18 Pa. C.S. § 3204, which says that an abortion is legal in Pennsylvania (consistent with Roe v. Wade) if a single physician believes that it is “necessary” based on “all factors (physical, emotional, psychological, familial and the woman’s age) relevant to the well-being of the woman.” Indeed, the cited statute provides only a single circumstance in which an abortion prior to 24 weeks is NOT permitted under the Pennsylvania statute: “No abortion which is sought solely because of the sex of the unborn child shall be deemed a necessary abortion.”
As a result, “Under the Rendell-Sebelius plan, federal funds will subsidize coverage of abortion performed for any reason, except sex selection,” said NRLC’s Johnson. “The Pennsylvania proposal conspicuously lacks language that would prevent funding of abortions performed as a method of birth control or for any other reason, except sex selection — and the Obama Administration has now approved this.”
A group of Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives who initially withheld support from the federal health care bill, because of concerns about pro-abortion effects, cited President Obama’s March 24 executive order in justifying their votes to pass the bill over objections from NRLC and other pro-life groups, which argued that the executive order did not contain effective barriers to federal subsidies for abortion. As USA Todayreported on March 25, “Both sides in the abortion debate came to a rare agreement on Wednesday: The executive order on abortion signed by President Obama, they said, was basically meaningless. ‘A transparent political fig leaf,’ according to the National Right to Life Committee’s Douglas Johnson. ‘A symbolic gesture,’ said Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards.”
Womb of the Unknown Soldier
The military may want to limit civilian casualties, but Senate Democrats are doing everything they can to increase them. When they trek back to Washington next week, members will take another crack at taxpayer-funded abortions--this time on foreign and domestic military installations. If they succeed, it would be the government’s second largest expansion of abortion this year. And, like the health care law, it will be just as unpopular.
If there’s one thing liberals should have learned from ObamaCare, it’s that forcing Americans into the abortion business is a lesson in what-not-to-do before a major election. Dragging taxpayers into another debate on an issue in which their views are consistently ignored will only reinforce their bitterness about the current Congress. It will also expose President Obama for the imposter that he is. If he signs a bill that turns our military hospitals into abortion clinics, it will destroy the last scrap of credibility he has on this issue. As Bob Maginnis points out in his new op-ed, President Obama signed an Executive Order meant to reassure voters that federal funds wouldn’t be used to pay for abortions. Attaching his name to this bill would violate that trust in a very public way.
In the meantime, Democrats will try to argue that overturning the 1996 ban on military abortions wouldn’t cost Americans anything. Nice try, writes Maginnis. Apart from the actual abortion fee, there’s no telling how many hundreds of thousands of dollars would be spent outfitting the current facilities with new equipment, staffs, extra beds, transportation, office space, medicine, sanitation, and the list goes on. And since the military is a relatively conservative group, it would be nearly impossible to find personnel who are willing to perform the procedure. That’s one reason why President Bill Clinton’s abortion experiment failed after three years in the military. The armed services couldn’t identify enough people to participate in his anti-life agenda. Instead, they had to hire what were essentially abortion mercenaries, outside contractors who would provide the procedure at--you guessed it--taxpayer expense. And by expanding the policy to U.S. facilities, military hos pitals wouldn’t be bound by parental involvement laws or other pro-life laws in the state the base is located. The bottom line is that our troops’ mission is to protect all innocents--including the unborn.
Meanwhile, as the Senate tries to destroy the next generation of soldiers, President Obama is still intent on demoralizing the current ones. When Congress returns, so too will the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” debate. This week, the Pentagon emailed a formal survey to 400,000 U.S. troops, asking servicemen to weigh in on the policy and how they would feel about sharing quarters or open-bay showers with homosexuals. Other questions touched on whether the repeal would affect their willingness to serve or affect morale. On last night’s “Situation Room,” CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interviewed Lawrence Korb of the ultra-liberal Center for American Progress, who said that surveying the military is “a terrible idea because really what you’re doing is giving the troops the impression that they can change the policy or a lter the policy. Also, if you go back you take a look at how the troops felt about other social changes, [like] integrating African-Americans… had you taken a survey of those things, and you paid attention to it, those things would have never happened.”
Apart from implying that 50s soldiers were racists, CAP can’t seem to understand the major difference between now and then: a little thing called the draft. This is a volunteer military, and if retention drops as a result of this social experiment, then America may have no choice but to force people into service. Sort of an important question, don’t you think?
Something Berwicked This Way Comes…
Recess is usually a time for game-playing--and in Washington, it’s no different. With Congress out of his hair for the week, President Obama couldn’t resist hiring another radical socialist for one of the most important jobs in America. Knowing that many in his party wouldn’t support him, the President used a recess appointment to force Dr. Don Berwick into the top spot at Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). By sidestepping the confirmation process, the White House also avoided a messy public debate over Berwick’s fanatical support for “death panels” and rationing.
To justify the move, the President’s communications director said Republicans were stalling the nomination--but, as everyone with any political sense knows, the GOP couldn’t stall Berwick if they wanted to! Under Senate rules, the majority controls the committees. So it’s the Democrats--not Republicans--who decide when to hold hearings and schedule votes. They refused to do either, which should indicate just how offensive this nominee is. FRC has fought his appointment since the White House originally floated his name. As the head of CMS, Berwick will be in charge of almost a trillion dollars in benefits, not including the massive expansions of Medicaid under the new health care law. And just to give you an idea of how powerful his post will be, the Senate Republican Policy Committee explains that CMS is larger than all but 15 of the world’s economies.
Obviously, the President’s decision to seat Berwick without so much as a hearing is shocking for a job of this magnitude. “It’s nearly unprecedented for an administration to recess appoint [someone] that has not even come up for a hearing. It’s unfortunate that President Obama saw fit to take this extraordinary step,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), “and appoint an individual charged with overseeing a benefits budget larger than the economies of Denmark, South Africa, and Israel combined without so much as a hearing to examine his views.”
So what are these “views” that the White House is so desperate to cover up? For one, Berwick is a socialist. He was caught on video suggesting that “any health care funding plan that is just… must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer...” Secondly, he thinks it’s cheaper to let sick patients die than provide care. “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care,” he said last year, “the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.” He is, in his own words, “romantic” about nationalized health care, particularly Britain’s system. He despises free market capitalism. And the list goes on and on.
Congress is right to be outraged. Senators like Tom Barrasso (R-Wy.) were stunned to learn that while they’re on vacation, President Obama gave Berwick the keys to one of the biggest federal agencies in the country. “Because this post administers the Medicare program, it touches virtually every senior in America ...” he said. “This recess appointment proves [that Obama] did not have the support of a majority of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate… Once again, [the President] is going behind closed doors out of fear the American people will learn that Dr. Berwick plans to use rationing as a cost-cutting tool...”
Tennessee Becomes First to Opt Out of Abortion
Mandates in Federal Health Care Bill
Monday, April 19, marked an extraordinary day for pro-life Tennesseans as Governor Bredesen defied expectations and signed into law Tennessee’s Freedom from Coercion Act, a protective bill sponsored by state Rep. Susan Lynn and Sen. Jack Johnson which passed overwhelmingly by both the state House (87-8) and state Senate (29-2.)
The Act requires abortion providers throughout the state to post Tennessee’s non-coercion policy and provides for fines against those medical facilities which do not comply. Among those required to post the signage are abortion facilities, hospitals, and offices of private physicians who perform abortions.
In addition, Tennessee’s state Senate joined the House on Monday evening in easily passing legislation which bans the inclusion of abortion as a benefit within health exchanges required by the recently passed federal health care plan. Tennessee becomes the first state to opt out of the abortion mandate with similar bills pending in Missouri and Louisiana.
The senate bill was sponsored by pro-life state Senator Diane Black (R-Gallatin.) “We must take every action possible to protect Tennessee from being a part of a plan that allows for funding abortions,” Black said prior to the Senate vote. “We have worked for years to ensure that taxpayer money is not used for abortion services in Tennessee,” added Black, “and we must fight back against this overreach of federal power.”
Tennessee Right to Life expresses great appreciation to the following members of the state Senate who voted to protect human life and Tennessee’s tax payers. In particular, the leadership of Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey combined with the work of pro-life stalwarts Diane Black and Jack Johnson has resulted in enormous gains for Tennessee’s pro-life movement this legislative session.
“Despite the challenges of Planned Parenthood v. Sundquist, Tennessee’s pro-life leadership is working creatively to represent the state’s pro-life majority and to restore as much protection as the state Supreme Court’s terrible 2000 decision currently allows,” said Brian Harris, president of Tennessee Right to Life.
“This session’s victories demonstrate the importance of pro-life leadership and the necessity for pro-life voters to make sacrificial efforts this fall to continue electing candidates with a demonstrated commitment to the protection of human life,"Harris said.
