House Passes Bill to Completely Ban

Taxpayer Funding of Abortions

by Steven Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 1/28/14 6:13 PM

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The House today approved legislation that will put in place a complete ban on taxpayer funding of abortions that ensures abortions are not directly funded in any federal governmental program or department.

The legislation combines several policies that must be enacted every year in Congressional battles and puts them into law where they will not be in jeopardy of being overturned every time Congress changes hands from pro-life lawmakers to those who support abortions.

The House voted 227-188 for the bill with 221 Republicans and 6 Democrats voting to ban taxpayer funding of abortions under HR7 while 187 Democrats and one Republican voted against it. [ROLL CALL at end of story.]

Congressman Tom price said during the debate: “This legislation prohibits taxpayer funding of elective abortions, no matter where in the federal system that might occur. This is a position supported by the majority of Americans in a bipartisan manner. We have a responsibility, through our government, to protect the most vulnerable among us, not the least of whom are the unborn. This bill is an important step in the right direction.”

The bill has been around a few years but has only been approved in the House thanks to a pro-abortion Senate. On May 4, 2011, the House passed HR 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, on a 251-175 vote with Republicans voting 235-0 for the bill and Democrats voting 175-16 against it.

Congressman Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who is the lead sponsor of the bill, spoke on the House floor during debate and said it would help hold President Barack Obama accountable by ensuring no taxpayer funds are used to pay for abortions.

A majority of Americans object to the use of taxpayer money for funding abortion, according to numerous polls — including a survey CNN conducted in early April showing Americans oppose public funding of abortion by a margin of 61% to 35%.

The bill will also mitigate concerns about abortion funding in the various loopholes in the Obamacare national health care bill that various pro-life organizations warned about during debate on the law. The legislation did not contain language banning funding of abortions in its provisions and the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act would fix that problem.

The National Right to Life Committee sent a letter to House members urging support for the legislation that explains how the bill will help:

“Regrettably, however, the 111th Congress enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). During consideration of that legislation, language was proposed (the Stupak-Pitts Amendment) to apply the principles of the Hyde Amendment to the multitude of programs created by the bill, and the House initially approved that language – but no such provision was part of the enacted law, due to opposition from President Obama and the Senate majority. Consequently, the enacted PPACA contains multiple provisions authorizing funding of abortion and funding of health plans that cover abortion.”

The National Right to Life letter also commented on another lesser-known provision of the tax-funded abortion ban — it’s language to protect health care professionals who don’t want to be involved in abortions.

“The bill would codify the principles of the Hyde-Weldon Amendment, which has been appended to the original Hyde Amendment on every Health and Human Services appropriations bill since 2004. This provision would solidify important protections for health care providers who do not wish to participate in providing abortions – which is especially important in light of the Obama Administration’s February 23, 2011 action rescinding the conscience protection regulation issued by the Bush Administration.”

A new Kaiser Foundation study found that 6.1 million women will gain elective abortion coverage under Obamacare through the Medicaid expansion and new federal premium subsidies. H.R. 7 would essentially codify the executive order used in 2009 by President Obama to secure the final votes needed from pro-life Democrats in order to pass the health care overhaul.

The pro-life group CatholicVote also supports the bill as do many other pro-life groups including Americans United for Life, the Susan B. Anthony List, Liberty Counsel and Family Research Council.

“This critically important legislation is called the No Taxpayer Funding of Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act,” Brian Burch of CatholicVote said. “This legislation has been updated to deal with the horrible expansion of abortion that began with the implementation of Obamacare. The House is ready to lead. If they pass this bill, the pressure will be on Senate Democrats up for election this year in red states like Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, and North Carolina.”

HOW YOUR LAWMAKERS VOTED: A yes is a pro-life vote to stop taxpayer-funding of abortion. Democrats are listed in italics.

LEARN MORE & SEE HOW YOUR LEGISLATOR VOTED:

http://www.lifenews.com/2014/01/28/house-passes-bill-to-completely-ban-taxpayer-funding-of-abortions/

Lutheran Charity Thrivent’s Donations to Pro-Abortion Groups Would Fund 34 Abortions

by Pastor Michael Schuermann | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 1/29/14 2:52 PM

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Two weeks ago I reported that Thrivent had been granting funds to several pro-abortion organizations. The funds were granted through Thrivent’s employee gift-matching program, Gift Multiplier.

Today I can add to that report. Since at least 2006, Thrivent has been providing funds yearly through Gift Multiplier to pro-abortion groups including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, several Planned Parenthood affiliates, NARAL Pro-Choice Foundation of Minnesota, and theReligious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

In 2012 (the most recent year for which information is available), Thrivent matched at least $2,700 of donations to pro-abortion organizations. This means that Thrivent gave $2,700, and Thrivent employees donated $2,700 for a total of $5,400 given.

In 2011, Thrivent matched at least $1,373 of employee gifts to pro-abortion orgs. In 2010, at least $1,521.

Prior to 2010, Thrivent’s giving to pro-abortion organizations was in smaller amounts: 2009, at least $830; 2008, at least $450; 2007, at least $800; 2006, at least $810.

The financial gifts provided by Thrivent to these organizations are public knowledge. Certain federal-tax-exempt organizations are required to file an IRS Form 990, which is publicly available for any interested parties either from the IRS, the organizations themselves, or from certain 3rd-party firms that collect this information.

It will be argued that Thrivent’s giving to these pro-abortion organizations is relatively minimal, especially compared to the rest of Thrivent’s contributions throughout each year. If we consider only percentages, this is a valid point.

But this is assuming that all gifts are equally neutral. They are in fact not. Here’s why:

• Every dollar of the at-least $8,484 that Thrivent has matched (for a total of $16,968) has contributed to the ending of the lives of unborn children in this country. Thrivent is culpable for this.
• Every dollar that Thrivent is now withholding from pro-life organizations, such as pro-life advocacy groups and crisis pregnancy centers, goes to help mothers carry their pregnancies to term and children live healthy, productive, joyful lives.
• Every dollar of that $16,968 would not be in the hands of pro-abortion organizations if Thrivent was not willingly matching their employee’s donations to any and every 501(c)(3) organization.

The cost of a typical abortion, according to Planned Parenthood, ranges from $400 to $600 depending on circumstance. Assuming an average cost of $500 per abortion, Thrivent enabled just short of 34 abortions between 2006 and 2012. Given the now prevalent use of medical abortions via abortifacient medications, and the significantly lower average cost of these types of abortions, the number of abortions funded by Thrivent is likely significantly higher.

LEARN MORE: 

http://www.lifenews.com/2014/01/29/lutheran-charity-thrivents-donations-to-pro-abortion-groups-would-fund-34-abortions/

Cathy McMorris Rogers: A Pro-Life Rock Star With a Bright Future

by Chris Crawford | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 1/29/14 11:46 AM

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Last night, pro-life leader and longtime friend of the SBA List, Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) gave a stellar response to the State of the Union. McMorris Rodgers, the highest ranking Republican woman in Congress, is a pro-life rock star who was introduced to a nationwide audience.

After becoming the first in her family to go to college, she was elected to Congress in 2004 with almost 60% of the vote. During her tenure, she has risen to become the highest-ranking woman in the U.S. House of Representatives. In the House, she has been a strong leader in the pro-life movement, voting to ban-late term abortion and sex-selection abortion and has been a steadfast supporter of parental rights. In 2012, she was outspoken in combating the deceitful “War on Women” meme.

Rodgers’ personal story is inspiring. After being elected to Congress, she met and was married to retired Navy commander Brian Rodgers in 2006. Together, they have had three children since 2007, making McMorris Rodgers the first woman to have three children while serving in the U.S. Congress.

In her speech last night, McMorris Rodgers discussed those three children. When their first son, Cole, was diagnosed with Down syndrome three days after his birth, McMorris Rodgers said:

“When we looked at our son, we saw possibilities. We saw a Gift from God. Today we see a six-year-old boy who dances to Bruce Springsteen; who reads above grade level; and who is the best big brother in the world. We see all the things he can do, not those he can’t. Cole and his sisters, Grace and Brynn, have only made me more determined to see the potential in every human life – that whether we are born with an extra twenty-first chromosome or without a dollar to our name – we are not defined by our limits, but by our potential.”

After working tirelessly in Congress to promote the dignity of every human life, McMorris Rogers used her primetime speech to bring that personal message to the entire country.

A wife, mother, and a strong pro-life legislator, she is an inspiration to women and girls across America. She stands in stark contrast to President Obama who last week celebrated the 41^stanniversary of the Roe v. Wade by saying “this is a country where everyone deserves the same freedom and opportunities to fulfill their dreams.”

Women do not need abortion to fulfill their dreams. Rep. McMorris Rodgers gives a beautiful witness in showing how her son’s life, his ability to live and fulfill his dreams, has not damaged her ability to fulfill her own dreams, as she has become one of the leading women in American politics. She has not been “punished” with babies; she has been blessed with a family that inspires her to be a better legislator.

LEARN MORE: 

http://www.lifenews.com/2014/01/29/cathy-mcmorris-rogers-a-pro-life-rock-star-with-a-bright-future/

Obamacare Rationing is Beginning to Hit Medicare Advantage Plans for Seniors

by Jennifer Popik, JD | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 1/29/14 9:17 PM

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In last night’s State of the Union address, President Obama continued to misrepresent his health care law while evidence of rationing continues to mount. While hundreds of thousands lost their coverage in what Politifact dubbed as the 2013 “Lie of the Year”–Obama’s now debunked promise that if you liked your plan you would be allowed to keep it–it is being reported that tens of thousands of seniors are next.

On Tuesday evening the president spoke about health insurance for seniors saying, “And we did all this [extending coverage to uninsured] while adding years to Medicare’s finances, keeping Medicare premiums flat, and lowering prescription costs for millions of seniors.”

While AP factcheckers debunked this statement, an even larger problem is lurking just below the surface. Not only have hundreds of thousands lost coverage only to find narrower networks, and less access to specialty doctors and hospitals under newly created exchange plans (more here), but seniors are now facing the same fate. Even worse, the Obama Health Care law may prevent them from using their own money to obtain plans less likely to ration care.

Medicare for seniors has several components, but nearly 30% of seniors in 2013 choose to receive their benefits through what is called the Medicare Advantage program. These plans work a lot like private insurance, where there are networks of physicians.

In a January 25, 2014 article in the Washington Post entitled, “Doctor Networks Cut by Medicare Advantage Plans,” Ariana Eunjung Cha, reported,

“Thousands of primary-care doctors and specialists across the country have been terminated from privately run Medicare Advantage plans, sparking a battle between doctors who say patient care is being threatened and insurers that insist they have to reduce costs and streamline their operations….

“Insurers say they must shrink their physician networks because they face billions of dollars in government-payment cuts over the next decade — reductions that are being used partly to fund insurance coverage for millions of people under the federal Affordable Care Act.”

Shockingly, these kinds of cuts and reductions are exactly what the Obama Health Care law intended.

According to an August 2010, Congressional Budget Office estimate, the Obama Health Care Law will cut $555 billion from Medicare over the next ten years. Most senior citizens know that the law will significantly cut government funding for their Medicare.

Less widely known is the law’s provision allowing Washington bureaucrats to prevent older Americans from making up the Medicare shortfall with their own funds—taking away their right to spend their own money to save their own lives.

Even before the Obama Health Care Law’s cuts, Medicare faced grave fiscal problems as the baby boomer generation aged. Medicare is financed by payroll taxes, which means that those currently working are paying for the health care of those now retired. As the baby boom generation moves from middle into old age, the proportion of the population that is retired will increase while the proportion of the population that is working will decrease. The result is that the amount of money available for each Medicare beneficiary, when adjusted for health care inflation, will shrink significantly.

In theory, taxes could be increased dramatically to make up the shortfall; however, such a proposal would be unlikely to attract popular and political support. The second alternative is rationing. Less money available per senior citizen means less treatment, including those necessary to prevent death. Many people whose lives could have been saved by medical treatment would perish against their will.

The third alternative is, as the government contribution decreases, that the shortfall could be made up by voluntary payments by senior citizens. Thus, Medicare health insurance premiums could be financed partly by the government and partly from older Americans’ own income and savings.

Through legislative changes in 1997 and 2003 successfully promoted by the National Right to Life Committee, this third alternative became law. A “private fee-for-service” option was created in Medicare under which senior citizens could choose health insurance whose value was not limited by what the government might pay toward it. These plans could set premiums and reimbursement rates for health care providers without upward limits imposed by government regulation.

Such plans would not be forced to ration treatment, as long as senior citizens were free to choose to pay more for them. For information on whether it would be possible to afford health care without rationing, see www.nrlc.org/MedEthics/AmericaCanAfford.pdf.

The Obama Health Care Law indirectly amended the section in the pre-existing law allowing these plans to set their premiums without approval by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) by adding, “Nothing in this section shall be construed as requiring the Secretary to accept any or every bid submitted by an MA organization under this subsection.”

Therefore, CMS may now refuse to allow senior citizens the choice of private-fee-for-service plans that charge what CMS, in its standardless discretion, regards as premiums that are too high. Indeed, the provision literally authorizes CMS, if it decides to do so, to refuse to allow private-fee-for-service plans altogether. How the law does this exactly can be found at:www.nrlc.org/uploads/medethics/ObamacareRoutestoRationing.pdf

LEARN MORE: 

http://www.lifenews.com/2014/01/29/obamacare-rationing-is-beginning-to-hit-medicare-advantage-plans-for-seniors/

Pro-Life Groups Launch National Boycott of Girl Scout Cookies Over Abortion Ties

by Steven Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 1/29/14 9:02 PM

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National pro-life groups have banded together to launch a boycott of the sales of Girl Scout cookies over the ties the organization has to the Planned Parenthood abortion business and how it has promoted pro-abortion groups and activists.

The pro-life movement has been concerned for a number of years about the ties between the Girl Scouts and the Planned Parenthood abortion business.  Although the Girl Scout organization maintains that it takes “no position” on the issue of abortion, parents, churches, and pro-life activists have long complained of the pro-abortion slant of the Girl Scouts’ resources, role models, and affiliations.

LifeNews is a part of the coalition of pro-life organizations that are boycotting sales of the cookies — along with American Life League, the Pro-Life Action League, the Radiance Foundation, blogger Jill Stanek, the National Black Pro-Life Union, the Issues4Life Foundation, and Life Coalition International.

The groups made their announcement via an article in Brietbart News:

Ryan Bomberger of the Radiance Foundation, who recently gave the keynote address at the March for Life Rose Dinner in Washington, D.C., is a champion for adoption over abortion.

“The Girl Scouts still proclaim to be honest and courageous, while denying their continual collaboration with the nation’s largest and undeniably dishonest abortion chain,” Bomberger said. “Abortion doesn’t make the world a better place, unless you agree with the deeply racist and elitist pseudoscience of eugenics – the foundation of Planned Parenthood.”

Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League commented , “As the father of six girls, I’m extremely disappointed by the Girl Scouts’ increasing collaboration with Planned Parenthood, an organization that aborts over 150,000 unborn baby girls every year.”

Similarly, Jim Sedlak of the American Life League told Breitbart News, “Through their continued support of the Culture of Death, the Girl Scouts have betrayed their heritage and their future. There is nobody who should purchase Girl Scout cookies to fund this group.”

Lila Rose, president of Live Action, also commented:

One of the ways Planned Parenthood has become so successful is by infiltrating and corrupting organizations that should be sanctuaries for women and young girls. We see this with the Komen Foundation, with our public education system, and, glaringly, with the Girl Scouts (GSUSA).

GSUSA’s intimate association with Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion corporation, is well-documented. But a billion-dollar enterprise glorifying sexual promiscuity, peddling hormone-altering drugs as panacea, and lobbying for physically and psychologically destructive abortion through all nine months of pregnancy has no interest whatsoever in girls’ well-being.

There are wholesome, healthy alternatives to the Girl Scouts out there. No little girl – or her parents – should have anything to do with an organization that kills over 330,000 pre-born children a year, covers up sexual abuse, advocates for infanticide, and builds its entire business model on harming women.

The Girl Scouts have come under fire repeatedly in 2014.

Fresh on the heels of Girl Scouts USA (GSUSA) sharing a recommendation for Wendy Davis as a 2013 Woman of the Year via their official Twitter account, the organization suggests HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius as a woman “with courage, confidence, and character.”

Meanwhile, the new national spokeswoman for the Girl Scouts, Kelly Parisi, is the former spokeswoman for a pro-abortion organization — one founded by Gloria Steinem.

The Girl Scouts have been criticized for their involvement in the May, 2013 Women Deliver Conference, an international event that included “safe and legal abortion” among its overarching themes. It documents its role in the planning and facilitating of the December, 2012 Bali Global Youth Forum and the outcome declaration, which demands youth access to abortion.

The ties between the two groups have been questioned ever since former Girl Scouts CEO Kathy Cloninger admitted on NBC’s The Today Show: “We partner with many organizations. We have relationships with…Planned Parenthood organizations across the country.” See the video here.

Then, in a national survey, seventeen Girl Scouts councils admit to partnering with Planned Parenthood; many other councils refuse to answer the survey question. Of the 315 Girl Scout councils in the U.S., 17 councils reported having a relationship with Planned Parenthood and its affiliates, and 49 reported they do not. The other 249 refused to disclose any relationship.

In 2010-2011 Girls Scouts in New York partnered with Planned Parenthood for a sex-ed program, “Real Life. Real Talk.” The program website touts their partners: “Real Life. Real Talk. is proud to count the following organizations, faith communities and companies as partners: …Girl Scouts of NYPENN Pathways.”

For fourteen year,s the Girls Scouts in Waco, TX co-sponsored a sex ed conference with Planned Parenthood. “It’s Perfectly Normal” a book written by a Planned Parenthood executive was  given to all children in attendance says abortion can be “a positive experience.” And in January 2012, Girl Scouts employee Renise Rodriguez wore a “Pray to End Abortion” t-shirt during off-duty

LEARN MORE:

http://www.lifenews.com/2014/01/29/pro-life-groups-launch-national-boycott-of-girl-scout-cookies-over-abortion-ties/

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