LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report
Friday, September 24, 2009
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Current Headlines
• Pro-Life Amendments to Baucus Bill Would Remove Financial Incentive for Rationing
• Nat Hentoff Highlights Rationing of Seniors' Health Care in Column on Baucus Bill
• Senate Democrats Stop Proposal to Halt President Obama's Pro-Abortion Czars
• Black Pastors to Back Health Care Bills, Give Cover to Barack Obama on Abortion
• Abortion Practitioner Who Killed Woman in Botched Legal Abortion Faces Hearing
• Canada's Catholic Bishops Ask Parliament to Oppose Legalizing Assisted Suicide
• Pro-Life Harvard Prof Glendon, Rejected Notre Dame Honor, Gets National Award
• Pro-Life Pastors to Participate in Second Pulpit Freedom Sunday to Challenge IRS
• Pro-Life Women's Group Backs Bill Bolling for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia
• Massachusetts' Paul Kirk Gets Kennedy Seat, Pro-Abortion Replacement Likely
• University of Calgary Pro-Lifers Hold Abortion Display Despite Free Speech Denial
• Dominican Republic Approves Complete Abortion Ban Apart From UN Pressure
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Pro-Life Amendments to Baucus Bill Would Remove Financial Incentive for Rationing
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Pro-life members of the Senate Finance Committee have offered two amendments designed to eliminate the rationing components of the Baucus health care bill. The concern revolves around one provision that penalizes Medicare doctors who provide higher levels of medical treatment to senior citizens. "This provision creates a cruel death spiral. By financially penalizing Medicare providers, the Baucus bill sets up the cruelest and most effective way to ensure that doctors are forced to ration care for their senior citizen patients," says David O'Steen, the executive director of the National Right to Life Committee. "Instead of bureaucrats directly specifying the treatment denials that will mean death and poorer health care for older people, it compels individual doctors to do the dirty work," he said. Senator Jon Kyl, a pro-life Arizona Republican and Senator Pat Roberts, a pro-life Kansas Republican, are behind amendments. They would remove the provision that establishes that, for at least five years, Medicare physicians who authorize treatments for their patients that wind up in the top 10% of per capita cost for a year will lose 5% of their total Medicare reimbursements for that year. NRLC says the provision means that all doctors treating older people will constantly be driven to try to order the least expensive tests and treatments for fear that they will be caught in that top 10%. The pro-life group says this feature operates independently of any considerations of quality, efficiency, or waste and that, "if you authorize enough treatment for your patients, however necessary and appropriate it may be, you are in danger of being one of the 1 in 10 doctors who will be penalized each year." Full story at LifeNews.com
ACTION: Contact members of the Senate Finance Committee and urge them to support amendments to make sure abortion funding and coverage -- as well as rationing -- are specifically excluded from the Baucus bill. You can find members of the panel here. http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/committee.htm
Nat Hentoff Highlights Rationing of Seniors' Health Care in Column on Baucus Bill
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Respected liberal pro-life columnist Nat Hentoff has a new opinion column he released yesterday that focuses on the concerns about rationing in the Baucus health care bill. After reading the legislative proposal, Hentoff agrees that provisions in the bill will lead to rationing of medical care for seniors. The provisions have caused such a great last-minute problem that pro-life groups are working with two pro-life members of the Senate panel considering the bill on amendments to alleviate the concerns. "In the Senate Finance Committee's health-care bill, there is a dangerous provision that could deny crucial health treatments for Medicare patients," he writes in a new column posted at WorldNetDaily. "During the continuous, extensive coverage of this proposed legislation, there has been only very limited mention – and none I've seen in the mainstream press – of" the provision, he writes. The measure "penalizes doctors for Medicare patients who, for at least five years (from 2015 to 2020), authorize total treatments that wind up in the top 10 percent of national annual Medicare costs per patient." Hentoff continues: "The 1 in 10 Medicare doctors who spend beyond this limit will themselves lose 5 percent of their own total Medicare reimbursements. Considering the already low rates Medicare doctors get – and the president pledges they will get lower – this could be a heavy penalty." Full story at LifeNews.com
Senate Democrats Stop Proposal to Halt President Obama's Pro-Abortion Czars
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Senate Democrats used a procedural tactic on Thursday to defeat a proposal from Republicans to put a halt to President Barack Obama's czars, many of whom strongly support abortion and euthanasia. The proposal would have halted any more federal funds for new czar positions without more information. Republicans wanted Obama's czars to have to appear before Congress to testify about their views since they are not subject to Senate approval. The Obama administration, which already has 18 czars, argued such a move would violate the separation of powers. The proposal said the Senate would be able to forward "reasonable" requests for testimony from the czars that would require a detailed "public, written report" biannually of their actions and any involvement in the creation of law, policy or regulations. Democrats used a Senate rule that prohibits legislating on a spending bill, something that both parties normally do, to prevent the proposal from being added. Sen. Susan Collins, a pro-abortion Republican, sponsored the proposal and said she was "deeply disappointed" that Senate Democrats used the rules to disallow it. Full story at LifeNews.com
Black Pastors to Back Health Care Bills, Give Cover to Barack Obama on Abortion
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A group of black pastors from the Church of God in Christ, a predominantly African-American denomination, are endorsing the health care plans in Congress today. They are giving cover to President Barack Obama, who has promised no abortion funding even though all three bills fund abortions. Led by Bishop Charles E. Blake Sr., a Los Angeles minister, the black pastors are offering their complete support for the public option -- the government-run insurance plan found in HR 3200 that funds abortions. According to a Los Angeles Times news report, the pastors were careful to use language saying they agreed with Obama that abortion funds should not be in the health care bills -- even though massive abortion subsidies and mandates exist. "In accord with our commitment to Christian teaching, we wholeheartedly affirm the president's position that medical costs related to the abortion of fetuses shall not be covered by healthcare plans funded by this initiative," Blake said at a press conference. The endorsement comes one day after a group of black pro-life leaders took an educational campaign to Capitol Hill to oppose the abortion funding in the health care bills. Full story at LifeNews.com
Abortion Practitioner Who Killed Woman in Botched Legal Abortion Faces Hearing
Hyannis, MA (LifeNews.com) -- Abortion practitioner Rapin Osathanondh, who has been charged with manslaughter after killing one of his patients in a botched legal abortion, faces a Friday hearing. Osathanondh did the abortion on 22-year-old Laura Smith, who died in September 2007 at his Women's Health Center abortion business. The September trial in Barnstable Superior Court is expected to last two weeks. Osathanondh was indicted in July 2008 by a grand jury after an investigation by local police, state police and the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine. Laura, who was adopted at the age of four from Honduras by her parents, was 13 weeks into the pregnancy when she had the abortion. Osathanondh reportedly sedated her and did not have another other staff members on site who had appropriate medical training to monitor Smith's vital signs during the abortion. In comments to OneNewsNow today, Operation Rescue staffer Cheryl Sullinger, who has been closely following the case, talked about the coming hearing. "He was the only licensed person in his clinic. The only other one there was an unlicensed receptionist, so when life-threatening complications occurred from the anesthesia he was unprepared and unable to help her, and so she died right there on the abortion table," she said. Full story at LifeNews.com
Ottawa, Canada (LifeNews.com) -- The president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has written a letter to members of Parliament in Canada asking MPs to oppose a bill that would legalize assisted suicide. Bloc MP Francine Lalonde has introduced her third private member's bill, C-384, to legalize the grisly practice. Archbishop James Weisgerber of Winnipeg authored the letter, which says legalizing assisted suicide would put the disabled at risk. "It is hard to see how any legislation legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide would protect the most vulnerable in our society. What confidence and trust could they possibly have that their lives would continue to be protected by health-care providers, family and friends, or society at large?" he asks. "Euthanasia and assisted suicide, by their very nature, mean there is no longer a common duty for all to protect the lives of others," he writes. "There is also the well-founded fear that euthanasia and assisted suicide can be imposed on individuals as a way to save costs and lessen demands on care-givers. Inevitably, the result would be a society even more fragmented, with its members living in greater isolation and anxiety." Full story at LifeNews.com| Right to Life plays Defense excellently. ChoiceKills.com is Offense |
 Abortion is protected by the seeming fairness of "A woman's right to choose." Choice has become both the facilitator and accomplice to the murders. Choice is now the opposition. Accuse it of involvement in the killing of millions. Remove its disguise of fairness. Reveal its true character till everyone knows Choicekills. |
Pro-Life Harvard Prof Glendon, Rejected Notre Dame Honor, Gets National Award
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Mary Ann Glendon, the pro-life Harvard law professor who rejected an award from the University of Notre Dame because it honored pro-abortion President Barack Obama, is set to receive her own award. The National Right to Life Committee will bestow its highest honor on Glendon at a dinner next month. Glendon will receive an award from the pro-life group at its Proudly Pro-Life Awards Dinner on October 6 at the prestigious Waldorf hotel in New York City. "In recognition of her inspiring courage and steadfast support for the sanctity of human life, Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon will receive the Proudly Pro-Life Award," NRLC said in an announcement sent to LifeNews.com today. "She is being honored for the uncommon courage displayed last April when she declined the prestigious Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame," the announcement reads. "The Laetare Medal, presented at their graduation ceremony, is given each year to an American Catholic layperson 'whose genius has …illustrated the ideals of the Church and enriched the heritage of humanity.'" Full story at LifeNews.com
Pro-Life Pastors to Participate in Second Pulpit Freedom Sunday to Challenge IRS
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A group of pro-life pastors will participate in another Sunday where they talk frankly about politicians and political candidates and issues like abortion. The second Pulpit Freedom Sunday on September 27 is meant to challenge what are considering onerous IRS restrictions on what pastors and priests can say. The pastors will preach sermons related to Biblical perspectives on the positions of electoral candidates or current government officials, exercising their constitutional right to free religious expression despite IRS rules against it. The Alliance Defense Fund, a pro-life legal group, sponsors the event designed to secure the First Amendment rights of pastors in the pulpit. Some of the pastors preaching Sunday will address the positions of candidates in current state governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia. Others will address the positions of existing government officials or people who have declared themselves for office in future elections. Full story at LifeNews.com
Pro-Life Women's Group Backs Bill Bolling for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia
Richmond, VA (LifeNews.com) -- The Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund, a national pro-life women's political group, has announced its endorsement of Bill Bolling, the Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. Billing is seeking the state's second highest post while pro-life advocate Bob McDonnell is running for governor. SBA president Marjorie Dannenfelser contacted LifeNews.com about the endorsement. "The Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund is proud to endorse Bill Bolling for Virginia's Lieutenant Governor," she said. "He is a proven, passionate advocate for women and the unborn, dedicated to fostering a culture of Life in Virginia. His record speaks for itself," she said. "From his support of Virginia's commonsense ban on partial birth-abortion to his ardent support for de-funding America's largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, Bolling delivers for the least among us." Full story at LifeNews.com
Massachusetts' Paul Kirk Gets Kennedy Seat, Pro-Abortion Replacement Likely
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick chose a close friend of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy to fill his seat in the Senate. Patrick picked Paul Kirk, who was the chairman of the Democratic Party in the late 1980s, to replace Kennedy, the pro-life advocate turned champion of abortion. Kirk said today that he would be a "voice and vote for [Kennedy's] causes and his constituents." For the health care debate, that means another vote for the Kennedy or Baucus bills, both of which include abortion funding and rationing of health care for seniors and are vigorously opposed by pro-life groups. In making the announcement of his selection for a replacement, Governor Patrick acknowledged that he was entrusting what Kennedy called the "cause of my life" – health care reform -- to Kirk. Full story at LifeNews.com
University of Calgary Pro-Lifers Hold Abortion Display Despite Free Speech Denial
Calgary, Canada (LifeNews.com) -- The members of the Campus Pro-Life group at the University of Calgary aren't letting a little thing like charges of criminally trespassing on their own campus stop them from speaking out against abortion. They are putting together a new pro-life display despite an expected court appearance in weeks. Six University of Calgary students pleaded not guilty in March to the bogus trespassing charges. They were arrested in February and charged after they set up a pro-life display college officials initially allowed but said they didn't want shown. When UC officials warned members of Campus Pro-Life that they had to restrict their own pro-life display, the students refused to comply. Now, the pro-life students are back with their graphic display on campus even though university officials have infringed on their free speech rights and told them to take them down. They have also threatened the students with non-academic misconduct procedures. Full story at LifeNews.com
Dominican Republic Approves Complete Abortion Ban Apart From UN Pressure
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (LifeNews.com/CFAM) -- Last week, lawmakers in the Dominican Republic gave their final approval to a pro-life constitutional change despite fierce criticism and pressure from UN agencies and abortion advocates to defeat the measure. The Dominican Republic's National Assembly easily ratified a revision of Article 30 in a vote of 128 in favor with 32 opposed. The article now states that "the right to life is inviolable from conception until death." While the measure was widely supported by Dominican parliamentarians, it met with staunch opposition from international abortion proponents and even UN agencies, which are officially neutral on abortion. Last April, when the right-to-life provision was first debated, two UN officials interjected themselves into the debate. Nils Kastberg, UNICEF's regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, called on Dominican legislators to consider liberalizing abortion so women would not be forced into "unsafe procedures." Full story at LifeNews.com
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