LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
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Current Headlines
• Senator Submits Compromise Health Care Bill, Obama Wants Public Option
• Writer: President Obama Not Forthright on Abortion Funding in Health Care
• Senate Will Soon Consider Abortion Funding in DC, for Federal Employees
• Senate Must Deal With Obama's Pro-Abortion Nominations After Recess
• Life Chain Will Present Pro-Woman, Pro-Life Message to Millions in October
• Catholics for Choice Backs Pro-Abortion Health Care Bill After Bishops Caution
• Fake Pro-Life Group Third Way Claims Health Care Bills Will Reduce Abortions
• British Pro-Life Leader Tells SPUC Conference: More Abortion Than War Deaths
• Indiana Planned Parenthood Closes Five Centers After Hiding Sex Abuse
• New Mexico ACLU Defending Man Who Killed Pregnant Girlfriend, Unborn Child
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Key Senator Submits Compromise Health Care Bill, Obama Wants Public Option
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A key senator has submitted a so-called compromise bill he hopes will become the main health care restructuring legislation in the Senate given the intense opposition to the current pro-abortion bill. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama on Monday said he is not backing down on the public option. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has come up with a plan that he hopes will get a few Republican votes in order to have a chance of passing his committee and the Senate. His plan requires Americans to obtain health insurance although it would not create the government-run health care system that Obama and most Democrats want. Instead, it would promote nonprofit health-insurance cooperatives to compete with private insurance companies. The Baucus bill also creates new health-insurance exchanges that would provide the public with information on insurance plans and pricing, so individuals and small businesses can more easily obtain health care. The sticking point in the health care debate for the pro-life community has been that the government-run plan and the subsidies to purchase health care insurance would be used to pay for abortions. Full story at LifeNews.com
ACTION: Contact members of the House and Senate and urge strong support for any amendment to exclude abortion and rationing from their health care bills. Ask them to oppose any health care bill that allows abortion funding or rationing. Call 202-224-3121 or go to http://www.House.gov and http://www.Senate.gov for specific contact information.
Writer: President Barack Obama Not Forthright on Abortion Funding in Health Care
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- In a weekend column, nationally syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker says President Barack Obama has not been forthright on the abortion funding found in the health care reform bills Congress is considering. A leading pro-life advocate says Parker is right but understates how much the bills fund abortions. "By not being completely forthright about federal funding issues for the procedure, President Obama has lost some of his momentum in the reform debate," parker writes. "The president may have decided that a thorough explanation was too complicated -- and the subject is not simple. Or perhaps, as some have suggested, he simply doesn't understand it himself," she says. "But Obama figured wrong if he thought he could deflect concerns about one of the nation's most divisive issues with a casual dismissal of those crazy myths." Parker cites the recent analysis form the nonpartisan FactCheck.org web site that confirmed the House and Senate measures both open the door to government funding of abortion. She acknowledges that the congressional bills "allow for funding in indirect -- possibly disingenuous -- ways." Full story at LifeNews.com
Senate Will Soon Consider Abortion Funding in DC, for Federal Employees
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The campaign to stop the massive expansion of taxpayer-funding of abortions through the health care bills isn't the only abortion debate that will take place in Congress as lawmakers return from their August break. They will also consider funding abortions in the nation's capital and for federal employees. Early this summer, President Obama asked members of Congress to write the federal budget bills in such as way as to allow tax-funding abortions in the District of Columbia. The House complied and approved a bill that funds abortions in Washington and then the House Appropriations Committee voted largely along partisan lines to prevent a pro-life amendment restoring the funding ban, called the Dornan Amendment. On the Senate side, Sen. Sam Brownback, a pro-life Kansas Republican, offered an amendment to the Financial Services appropriations bill (S. 1432) to restore the long-standing abortion funding limits. However, the amendment failed in committee by a vote of 15-13 with Democrats mostly voting against the amendment and Republicans supporting it. Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas broke with their caucus to support the Brownback amendment. Full story at LifeNews.com
Senate Must Deal With Obama's Pro-Abortion Nominations After Summer Recess
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- With members of the Senate heading back to Washington this week after their August recess, the abortion-health care debate is most prominent on their minds. However, they Senate will eventually tackle the pro-abortion nominations President Barack Obama has made. Obama nominated pro-abortion federal judge David Hamilton to fill a vacancy in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and pro-life advocates have strenuously opposed his nomination. Hamilton was initially appointed by President Clinton to a district judgeship in Indiana in 1994 even though the ABA gave him a "not qualified" rating. In that position, Hamilton issued a series of rulings over seven years that prevented Indiana from implementing its informed consent law that would give women information about abortion's risks and alternatives. Before the break, Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, a pro-abortion Vermont Democrat, complained about the slow pace of the full Senate approving the nominees his committee has passed. Full story at LifeNews.com
Life Chain Will Present Pro-Woman, Pro-Life Message to Millions in October
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Millions of Americans will be reminded of the pro-woman, pro-life perspective when they take to the streets on Sunday, October 4. That's because thousands of pro-life advocates in cities and towns across the country will be there to share the message with them. The Life Chain has been a peaceful, prayerful pro-life witness for decades as Americans young and old hold signs proclaiming "Abortion Kills Children" and "Abortion Hurts Women." Standing along busy street corners, pro-life advocates will enjoy the thumbs up they receive from the majority of Americans who are pro-life and endure honking horns and obscene gestures from some who are not. Royce Dunn, the national director of the Life Chain, says the event is needed so people can respond to the need for additional pro-life leadership from the churches and a government that is promoting abortion. "As repressive clouds of spiritual deception and deadly government mandates encompass both church and nation ever more aggressively, the pulpit and pew must fight ever more devotedly to defend our essential values," he told LifeNews.com. He said "Life Chain provides each of us an easy, affordable, yet very purposeful way to defend those values." Full story at LifeNews.com
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A pro-abortion "Catholic" group has issued a statement supporting the pro-abortion health care bills in Congress on the heels of concerns from the nation's Catholic bishops. "Catholics for Choice" admits that it is out of step with the leaders of the Church, who are worried about abortion funding. Jon O'Brien, president of the dissident group, conceded that "our vision for healthcare reform is different than the US bishops and their conservative allies." He accused the bishops and pro-life groups of seeking to "marginalize issues of reproductive health-as if people's reproductive health can be separated from their overall health" -- a statement that links abortion to health care. O'Brien sets out a list of statements his group supports and goes as far on abortion as the bishops and pro-life groups worry the final bill will go. "We believe that abortion should be federally funded and covered by all insurance companies," the "Catholics for Choice" group says, backing taxpayer-funded abortions and coverage mandates. Full story at LifeNews.com
Fake Pro-Life Group Third Way Claims Health Care Bills Will Reduce Abortions
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The fake pro-life group Third Way is pushing a disingenuous argument that the government-run health care plans Congress is considering would somehow reduce abortions even though it could open the door to funding hundreds of thousands of abortions annually. Third Way is the coalition of liberal religious activists whose work is used as a cover to promote pro-abortion legislation and candidates like President Barack Obama. Organizations such as Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United, which have both praised Obama and his pro-abortion record, have both formal and informal ties with Third Way. Last week, the group sent copies of its analysis to members of Congress and their aides claiming the legislation will "have the ultimate effect of reducing the number of abortions in America." Full story at LifeNews.com
British Pro-Life Leader Tells SPUC Conference: More Abortion Than War Deaths
London, England (LifeNews.com) -- As pro-life advocates from nations across the world gathered to address the national conference of England-based Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), the group's executive director closed the conference with a passionate speech. John Smeaton, the national director of the pro-life group, told the audience how the number of unborn children killed via abortion outpaces the number of soldiers who died in World War II. The death-toll of World War II was a tragic prelude to the far greater slaughter by abortion and euthanasia that has happened since, Smeaton explained. Deaths of unborn children worldwide through abortion vastly outnumber the total of military and civilian war deaths. He said about 55 million people were killed during the 1939-45 war but that 57 million unborn children have been killed since 1967 in Britain and the United States of America alone. That total does not include unborn children killed via drugs that can cause abortions or embryonic stem cell research or so-called medical cloning. Some "70 years on we're not fighting Nazi tyranny but the tyranny of politicians who promote legislation worldwide that destroys the lives of unborn children," he told delegates. Full story at LifeNews.com
Indiana Planned Parenthood Closes Five Centers After Hiding Abortion-Sex Abuse
Indianapolis, IN (LifeNews.com) -- Planned Parenthood of Indiana says it will close five of its 34 centers across the state due to changes in the way the federal government allocates family planning funds. The decision to close the centers comes after an expose' found two of them hiding instances of possible statutory rape. In Indianapolis, the abortion business is closing its center near Michigan Road and 86th Street. According to a press statement, Planned Parenthood will also close facilities in Anderson, Kokomo, Franklin and Shelbyville. The centers are closing despite the record amount of money the abortion business received from the federal government in the last fiscal year.
The total government grants and contracts received by PPFA affiliates from government sources including state, local and federal governments, increased from $337 million to $350 million. Looking at Planned Parenthood data from 1997 to the present, the increase in government funding corresponds with an increase in the number of abortions. Full story at LifeNews.com
New Mexico ACLU Defending Man Who Killed Pregnant Girlfriend, Unborn Child
Santa Fe, NM (LifeNews.com) -- The ACLU of New Mexico is defending a state resident charged with killing his pregnant girlfriend and her unborn child. Marino Leyba, Jr., stands accused of killing 17-year-old Sarah Lovato, her father and Lovato's nine-month-old unborn child. Leyba reportedly shot Lovato twice in the back and once in the stomach and prosecutors say he purposefully targeted the unborn baby, whom the couple planned to name Isaac. After killing her partner and her unborn baby, Leyba, a security guard who was off duty at the time, turned his gun on Bennie Lovato, Sr., 50, and shot him three times. Although the baby died, Lovato can't be held accountable for killing the child because New Mexico is not one of the 35 states that has an unborn victims law in place allowing prosecutors to charge criminals with an additional crime when they kill or injure an unborn baby in addition to attacking his mother. Leyba later admitted to his father that he shot Sarah Lovato, the baby, and her father. Now, Gary C. Mitchell of Ruidoso, the president of the board of directors of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, will be representing Leyba as he attempts to avoid prosecution by pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. Full story at LifeNews.com
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