Barack Obama's Health Care Plan Covers Abortion, Would Require Tax-Funding
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A leading pro-life group has uncovered a questionnaire the campaign of Barack Obama filed with a pro-abortion web site. The survey makes it clear that Obama's national health care plan would include abortions and that they would likely be funded at taxpayer expense. The Obama campaign responded to a question about health care from the pro-abortion RH Reality Check web site. "Senator Obama believes that reproductive health care is basic health care," the campaign said, using the phrase that abortion advocates employ to refer to abortion. "His health care plan will create a new public plan, which will provide coverage of all essential medical services. Reproductive health care is an essential service," the Obama campaign added. The Obama camp also made it clear that any private insurance companies wanting to participate would also be required to provide abortion coverage. "And private insurers that want to participate will have to treat reproductive care in the same way," the Obama campaign responded. Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, says the answers make it clear to him that Obama would fund abortions with federal taxpayer dollars and make people in private insurance plans pay for abortions because insurance companies would pass on the additional costs to customers. "While the health care debate has largely focused on whom the candidates' plans will fund, more Americans need to understand exactly what they would fund," Perkins explains. "According to these [questionnaire] excerpts, Obama's plan would treat abortion as a basic health care mandate for both taxpayers and private health insurers to subsidize." Full story at LifeNews.com
Barack Obama Would Restore Funds to UN Group Involved in Forced Abortions
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Barack Obama supports federal funding for abortions and opposes funding crisis pregnancy centers or abstinence education programs, but his campaign also confirms he supports funding a group that is involved in forced abortions. The UNFPA would receive taxpayer funds under an Obama administration. That's despite research confirming the UNFPA's participation in the China family planning program that prohibits families in the Asian nation from having more than one child. The coercive policy also includes forced abortions, forced sterilizations, and has seen Chinese population control officials remove offenders from their jobs, harass family members and required forced labor or imprisonment for those violating the policy. Chinese officials have also gone as far as jailing Chen Guangcheng for more than three years because the attorney spoke with American media outlets about a violent forced abortion campaign in his city. President Bush has revoked funding for the UNFPA every year during his administration for violating a U.S. law prohibiting sending public funds to groups that promote forced abortions. Full story at LifeNews.com
Video Shows Babies Left to Die After Failed Abortions in Method Obama OKed
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new video of a Planned Parenthood staff member in New Jersey has surfaced showing abortion centers leave babies to die who survive failed abortions. The video shows the kind of infanticide that Barack Obama opposed stopping in Illinois continues to occur. The pro-life group Students for Life of America released the videotape Thursday of a nurse at a federally-funded Title X Planned Parenthood center describing how an abortion would be performed on a 22 week unborn child. In the footage, the Planned Parenthood nurse describes to the pregnant woman that the abortion would entail delivering her son alive. After the mother asks if the baby can be born alive, the nurse admits that "it does happen, but it wouldn't be able to survive on its own so eventually the baby does die." SFLA director Kristan Hawkins says the footage is "shocking" because it confirms that the practice of allowing infants to die after they survive a failed abortion or a purposeful premature birth continues to happen. Hawkins also told LifeNews.com that it confirms there was no reason for presidential candidate Barack Obama to vote four times in the Illinois legislature against a bill to make sure such infants receive appropriate medical care if they survive the late-term abortion procedure. Full story at LifeNews.com
Poll Shows Nine Percent Obama Lead Drops to Three, McCain Coming Back
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Another new poll shows the lead Barack Obama built up during the last two weeks has evaporated. A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics survey shows the nine-point advantage pro-abortion candidate Barack Obama had over John McCain has narrowed to just three percent. Obama led McCain by a 49-40 percentage point margin last week but that has dropped to a 47-44 percent lead. The Fox News poll shows the race tightening because independent voters are less favorable to Obama -- dropping to a five point advantage this week from a nine point advantage last week. Similarly, Obama held an 11-point lead with Catholics last week and that has dropped to a 46-46 percent split now. "Independent voters have long been regarded as one of the keys to this race and these results may foreshadow a tightening in the battleground states where independents carry disproportionate weight," Ernie Paicopolos, of Opinion Dynamics Corporation, told Fox News. Full story at LifeNews.com
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good Study Wrong on Abortion Laws
by Dr. Michael New
During this election cycle, a study on abortion released by Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG) has received plenty of attention from Democrats and pro-life supporters of Barack Obama. The spin is that state level pro-life laws only have a marginal impact on abortion rates and increasing welfare expenditures is a superior strategy for reducing the incidence of abortion. However, the study contains methodological shortcomings. A proper analysis of the data demonstrates that pro-life laws are effective and casts serious doubts about whether more generous welfare benefits actually result in abortion reductions. Furthermore, a closer look at the results actually provides evidence that some pro-life laws are effective. Many media reports are eagerly claiming that this study demonstrates that pro-life laws are ineffective. However, taking the results at face value, they actually provide some evidence that pro-life legislation is correlated with abortion declines. Two separate regressions of state abortion data from 1982 to 2000 find that Medicaid funding of abortion increases abortion rates by approximately 13 percent and 10 percent respectively. However, in their write-up, the study’s authors give these results relatively little attention. Full story at LifeNews.com
African-American Group Runs Ads Bashing Obama on Abortion in Missouri
Jefferson City, MO (LifeNews.com) -- An African-American group is running a campaign during the final week of the elections in the battleground state of Missouri to show voters how Barack Obama is out of touch with the black community on abortion. With little media attention paid to the issue, the Black Republican Political Action Committee says voters deserve to know where he stands. The campaign will reach African American voters in Kansas City and St. Louis and includes a five-day cable television schedule and Christian radio ads. A direct mail piece will reach more than 55,000 African American households. "Four out of every ten black children are aborted, but that's just fine with Barack Obama," the group's ad says. "Barack Obama called partial-birth abortion a legitimate procedure and opposed a bill protecting babies who survive abortions denying health care to infants who are dying on the table." Full story at LifeNews.com
Vote Pro-Life, Differences Between McCain and Obama on Abortion Too Great
by Colin Mason
On Tuesday, we will participate in a historic election. The stakes are high, and the campaign hard-fought. Already, in states like North Carolina and Florida, early voting has drawn record-smashing crowds. The nation’s voters are engaged in this election to a degree rare in American history, and pro-life voters must play their part. It is of paramount importance that values voters go to the voting booth on November 4th, and that they bring their pro-life convictions with them. There are stark differences between the two candidates on the life issues. John McCain has a perfect pro-life voting record in his years in the Senate, and has chosen a committed social conservative as his running mate. Barack Obama, for his part, has a record of consistently voting against the unborn. His radical stance in favor of abortion is illustrated by his insistence, at a Planned Parenthood function, that on the "fundamental issue" of choice, he "will not yield and Planned Parenthood will not yield." Full story at LifeNews.com
Pro-Life Group Funds Ads in Key States Against Obama, for Senate Candidates
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Family Research Council is undertaking a last-minute effort to urge voters to oppose Barack Obama because of his pro-abortion record and to support pro-life candidates for the House and Senate. The FRC Action PAC is launching a radio and newspaper ad campaign in the last push before Election Day. Radio ads will target Senate races in Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky and the Michelle Bachmann Congressional race in Minnesota. "On Monday, a newspaper ad will run in eight Ohio newspapers analyzing the impact of a President Barack Obama and an unchecked far-left Congress," the pro-life group told LifeNews.com in a statement. "Such a scenario would lead to radical policies" on abortion. In Georgia, the FRC radio spot endorses Senator Saxby Chambliss, saying that he "opposes abortion on demand" and that his opponent, Jim Martin, has made "protecting abortion rights one of his top legislative priorities." The Kentucky ad says Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford "doesn't think that a criminal that murders a pregnant woman should be charged with killing her unborn child" -- referring to his opposition to the unborn victims bill. Full story at LifeNews.com
