LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report
Thursday, January 7, 2010
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Current Headlines
• Conference Cmte Bypass Set, Pro-Abortion Senate Bill Basis for Coming Vote
• House Republican Leader Says Abortion Could Defeat Health Care Bill
• Pro-Life Leaders Promise Fight to Stop Abortion in Health Care Not Over
• National Cancer Institute Researcher: Abortion-Breast Cancer Link True
• Mikulski Pro-Abortion Amdt to Health Care Bill Hurts Special-Needs Kids
• Pro-Abortion Senators Dodd and Dorgan to Retire, Set Up 2010 Election
• Ellen Malcolm, President, Founder of Pro-Abortion Group Emily's List Retires
• Planned Parenthood to Open Largest Abortion Biz Soon in Houston, Texas
• Doctor Who Killed Woman in Botched Abortion May Lose Cali Medical License
• Walk for Life West Coast Expects 30,000 Pro-Life Advocates Opposing Abortion
• NARAL Honors Late-Term Abortion Practitioner LeRoy Carhart With 2009 Award
• Man Accused of Giving Girlfriend Drug to Force Abortion, Caused Miscarriage
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Conference Committee Bypass Set, Pro-Abortion Senate Bill Basis for Coming Vote
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama have made it official: they will bypass a public, formal conference committee and negotiate behind closed doors on a final version of the pro-abortion health care bill.
The decision will have the the pro-abortion Senate version of the health care bill as the basis for a merged legislation that may very well include abortion funding.
Because the Senate approved the bill on a tenuous one-vote margin, there is less room for error there and little desire to subject the pro-abortion bill to additional 60-vote threshold votes.
Instead, Democrats have now formally adopted the "ping-pong" strategy of sending the Senate bill to the House to be tweaked and approved and back again. Obama, pro-abortion Vice President Joe Biden and top Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid reached the agreement on strategy at a White House meeting Tuesday night. They hope to be able to get the pro-abortion health care bill approved by the end of the month or early February and have it done so Obama can announce its passage during a postponed State of the Union address next month.
The decision to use the pro-abortion Senate bill as a basis for the final version of the legislation greatly concerns pro-life advocates. Full story at LifeNews.com
House Republican Leader Says Abortion Funding Could Defeat Health Care Bill
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The number two Republican in the House has unveiled a strategy memo saying he thinks the abortion funding in the Senate health care bill will ultimately derail the legislation. Democrats can't afford to lose more than two votes in the House and he sees 37 lawmakers who could vote against the bill.
House Republican Whip Eric Cantor says he believes "there is an opportunity to prevent this bill from becoming law."
"In order to pass a final bill, Democrat leaders cannot lose a single vote of the 60 they gained in the Senate, nor more than two of the 220 votes they gained in the House. To get their bill to this point, Democrat leaders have made a series of contradictory commitments and deals, each of which has the possibility of derailing a final bill," he explains.
"On the issue of abortion funding, for example, Senate Democrats have indicated that they cannot agree to the House-passed language, which continues a long-standing prohibition of federal funding of abortions. Meanwhile, many pro-life House Democrats who voted for the final House bill because of the fixed abortion language have indicated that the Senate-passed language is insufficient," Cantor continued.
Cantor says his team has identified 37 Democrats who he believes can be persuaded to vote against a final health care agreement.
He says if the Stupak amendment, which appeared in the House bill and banned abortion funding, is not present in the final bill, he sees 11 Democrats who would almost assuredly vote no on the final legislation. Full story at LifeNews.com
Pro-Life Leaders Promise Fight to Stop Abortion Funding in Health Care Not Over
by Dr. Charmaine Yoest, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Kristan Hawkins and David Bereit
Desperate times call for desperate measures, so they say. The abortion industry is right in the middle of these desperate times after their leader, President Obama, abandoned them in the midst of the health care debate.
By not stepping in to ensure that the Stupak-Pitts amendment, which prevents the government from funding abortion, would not be in the health care bill, he seems to have left them out in the cold.
Maybe not. After the amendment overwhelmingly passed the House did the president step in to say it went too far and that he would work to strip it from health care? The betrayal of Sen. Ben Nelson, Nebraska Democrat, certainly took a step in the right direction for the president when he caved on a phony abortion compromise that pushed the health care bill through the Senate on Christmas Eve.
But the abortion industry has certainly had its share of heartbreaks as well. Perhaps one of the worst betrayals came from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, an ardent pro-choicer herself, when she left the abortion lobby to fend for itself after letting Stupak-Pitts get to the floor for a vote. Full story at LifeNews.com
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The National Cancer Institute gained a reputation for putting politics over science when it did everything possible to deny dissenting opinion during a meeting to establish whether or not a link exists between abortion and breast cancer. Now, the main NCI acivist who got the agency to deny the abortion-breast cancer link has co-authored a study admitting the abortion-breast cancer link is true, calling it a "known risk factor."
Scientists and educators about the abortion-breast cancer link point to a new study that shows a top NCI official may be re-thinking the refusal to acknowledge the link.
The study, conducted by Jessica Dolle, appears in the April, 2009 issue of the prestigious cancer epidemiology journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.
The Dolle study, conducted with the prestigious Janet Daling group of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle -- one of the first to receive recognition for highlighting the abortion-breast cancer link -- concerns the link between oral contraceptives and breast cancer. Full story at LifeNews.com
Mikulski Pro-Abortion Amendment to Health Care Bill Hurts Special-Needs Kids
by Kristan Hawkins
In the coming weeks we will watch as the House and Senate health care bills are somehow reconciled into one piece of legislation -- and abortion will be right in the middle of that debate.
The Senate passed their version of the health care bill with an amendment by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) that requires health insurance issuers to provide coverage for preventative care for women and bars the issuers from imposing cost-sharing requirement on such care.
If the final bill includes the Mikulski amendment, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) will be able to define abortion as preventative care in either all or some cases.
Though it may seem far-fetched that abortion could be considered preventative care, it isn't the case.
This year the National Abortion Federation stated in Providing Abortion Care that, APCS [Advanced Practice Clinicians] are especially well positioned in the health care system to address women s need for comprehensive primary preventative health care that includes abortion care.
In addition, when the Senator offered her amendment, it was backed by the major players in the abortion industry: NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood, Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, etc. Full story at LifeNews.com
Pro-Abortion Senators Dodd and Dorgan to Retire, Set Up 2010 Election Races
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Two veteran pro-abortion senators have announced their plans to retire from the Senate after promoting abortion for decades in the halls of Congress. The retirements of Democrats Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota set up key 2010 election contests that could give pro-life advocates an opening.
The North Dakota lawmaker was one of the 60 votes for the pro-abortion health care bill in the Senate, though he was also one of a handful of Democrats to support an amendment to stop the abortion funding in the bill.
Still, Dorgan leaves the Senate with a pro-abortion record and only received a 20% pro-life voting record from the National Right to Life Committee this year on pro-life votes by virtue of supporting abortion funding in other circumstances. That mark is consistent with the low scores he received from NRLC in prior years.
Dorgan will not seek a 4th term in office, he announced late Tuesday in a decision that gives Republicans a chance to pick up a seat held in a state that could easily yield a pro-life replacement. Full story at LifeNews.com
Ellen Malcolm, President, Founder of Pro-Abortion Group Emily's List Retires
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Ellen Malcolm has held the reins to the multi-million dollar Emily's List for years and turned the organization into one of the biggest players in the Democratic Party. Emily's List is frequently a "queenmaker" because its massive donations and staff help can dwarf the efforts of other candidates.
Malcolm, put Emily's List on equal footing nationally with such venerable pro-abortion institutions as Planned Parenthood and NARAL.
With the acronym Early Money is Like Yeast -- that it grows political campaigns -- Malcolm was able to create a national network of abortion advocates who would send millions of dollars to pre-selected pro-abortion women candidates who frequently won party primaries because of the boost.
The Emily's List mantra is that the organization only supports women and its candidates must adhere to a strict pro-abortion theme -- going as far as opposing a ban on partial-birth abortions and favoring forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions. Her efforts won her respect but also complaints from her peers because of the group's ability to defeat male candidates who had been longtime party stalwarts and, perhaps, equally pro-abortion.
Malcolm announced her retirement today and said she will be replaced by a veteran Senate staffer.
She will continue to be involved in the operation of the group as the chair of the board of directors but day-to-day activities will now be handled by Stephanie Schriock, who is much younger at 36 than the 62-year-old Malcolm and can better relate to the new crop of pro-abortion zealots. Full story at LifeNews.com
Planned Parenthood to Open Largest Abortion Business Soon in Houston, Texas
Houston, TX (LifeNews.com) -- Planned Parenthood is planning to open its largest abortion business in the nation -- a 78,000 square foot behemoth in Houston, Texas. When it does, a coalition of local and national pro-life advocates will be on hand to protest the grand opening of the massive new abortion facility.
Housed in a six-story building that formerly housed a prominent bank, Planned Parenthood's new center in Houston dwarfs new ones in Denver (50,000 sf) and outside the Chicago area (22,000 sf) that have garnered attention.
The new center is located at 4600 Gulf Freeway on the southeast side of Houston on the way to Galveston, Texas. Ironically, the bishop of Houston-Galveston recently became the head of the pro-life office at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Lou Engle, founder of the pro-life group The Call to Conscience, which is organizing the rally to oppose the January 18 opening, spoke with CNS News. It s an abortion super center, he said. Full story at LifeNews.com
Doctor Who Killed Woman in Botched Abortion May Lose California Medical License
Anaheim, CA (LifeNews.com) -- An abortion practitioner who already lost his medical license once may lose it against because of a botched abortion lost year. Andrew Rutland lost his medical license in 2002 and may lose it again for medical negligence in a case that saw him flippantly treat an abortion patient.
Rutland surrendered his license in October 2002 after a two-year state investigation that resulted in accusations of negligence, misconduct and incompetence in his treatment of 20 pregnant women, newborns and gynecological patients He only admitted negligence in one case, that of Jillian Broussard, who suffered a torn spinal cord and died a week after she was delivered by forceps.
Rutland agreed not to contest the other accusations, which included negligence in the death of another baby, scaring patients into unnecessary hysterectomies, botching surgeries, lying to patients, falsifying medical records, over-prescribing painkillers and having sex with a patient in his office.
After a medical board hearing during which Rutland apologized for his actions in the Broussard case, the medical board's Division of Medical Quality approved the reinstatement of Rutland's license with a provision that he be supervised by another physician.
Now, Rutland faces a Thursday hearing in front of the California Medical Board at a hearing in San Diego, board spokeswoman Candis Cohen told the Orange County Register newspaper. Full story at LifeNews.com
Walk for Life West Coast Expects 30,000 Pro-Life Advocates Opposing Abortion
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Two young women who stood on opposite sides of the abortion debate until a few months ago will headline the 6th Annual Walk for Life West Coast on January 23rd as more than 30,000 peaceful pro-life activists walk along San Francisco's waterfront.
The walk has turned into the western version of the national March for Life, which regularly attracts as many as 200,000 or more pro-life people to the nation's capital.
Some 5,000 people participated in 2005, there were 20,000 in 2007 and, in 2008 crowd estimates were 25,000 to 30,000 for the rally and walk along the city's Fisherman's Wharf and Embarcadero. Last year's numbers grew higher and, with the election of pro-abortion stalwart Barack Obama and opposition to the pro-abortion health care bill seeing high levels, perhaps as many as 30,000 or more could turn out.
Former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson and UCLA student activist Lila Rose will be joined by the David Bereit, national director of 40 Days for Life for this year's event. Full story at LifeNews.com
NARAL Honors Late-Term Abortion Practitioner LeRoy Carhart With 2009 Award
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Top pro-abortion group NARAL is honoring a late-term abortion practitioner who has put women's health at risk with its 2009 Hero award after its members voted for him for the honor. The award vote gave its members chance to vote on their favorite abortion advocate and the pro-life advocate they despised most.
Carhart is the Omaha, Nebraska-based abortion practitioner who has attempted to step into the shoes of late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller of Kansas, who was shot and killed earlier this year.
NARAL announced the award this afternoon and said the pro-abortion activists were "united" in their choice of Carhart.
"All those nominated to the Hall of Fame are pro-choice champions, but one person rose to the top. We are honored to announce that the 2009 Hall of Fame designation goes to Dr. LeRoy Carhart," NARAL said. Full story at LifeNews.com
Man Accused of Giving Girlfriend Drug to Force Abortion, Caused Miscarriage
Grand Junction, CO (LifeNews.com) -- A Utah man who formerly lived in western Colorado stands accused of giving his pregnant girlfriend the second part of the two-part abortion drug in an attempt to force her to have an abortion. There is merely the latest in what is becoming a growing national and international phenomenon.
In this case, 31-year-old Jared Merril Ahlstrom appeared in Mesa County District Court on Tuesday where he faces a felony charge of unlawful termination of pregnancy.
The Associated Press indicates investigators said Ahlstrom sent emails to his former girlfriend saying he had given her misoprostol to cause an abortion.
He allegedly obtained the drug, which is an ulcer medication that is misused in the two-part RU 486 abortion drug process to cause contractions and expel the body of the dead unborn child, in Mexico. Full story at LifeNews.com
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