Life Advocacy Briefing

ObamaCare: The Facts on Abortion

ABORTION COVERAGE UNDER OBAMACARE has become a foggy question in the midst of an election campaign characterized in too many places by Members of Congress trying to obfuscate their actual records.

The truth of the matter, beyond the rhetoric, is clear and is demonstrated effectively in a six-and-a-half-minute video posted on the Internet at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW1DuhBRoUw. This masterful production is published by Population Research Institute using legal research principally from National Right to Life Committee.

Among the features is a link through which one can read the exact wording of Pres. Obama’s phony executive order as well as a careful analysis of why that order is, to quote the video, “useless.”

For Further Information

NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE HAS FILED A SERIES OF AFFIDAVITS as evidence in the pending Ohio complaint by Rep. Steve Driehaus (D) against the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List concerning SBA’s charge that in voting for ObamaCare, Rep. Driehaus voted for taxpayer-funded abortion. To review the documents demonstrating the ObamaCare/Abortion connection, readers may visit the Internet website at www.nrlc.org/AHC/DvSBA.

‘The Fewer the People the Better’!

SOMETIMES THEY GIVE US A GLIMPSE into their anti-people point of view, and Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards did just that in a recent appearance on the Bill Press radio program, reported by Kathleen Gilbert for LifeSiteNews.com.

“‘I think it’s important, Bill, to understand that unlike some other issues of cost,’” Miss Richards said, quoted by Miss Gilbert, “‘birth control is one of those issues that actually saves the government money. So an investment in covering birth control [with tax dollars] actually in the long run is a huge cost savings,’” she said, “‘because women don’t have children that they weren’t planning on having and all the sort of attendant costs for unplanned pregnancy.

“‘So we actually feel,’” she said in the interview reported by LifeSiteNews.com, “‘that covering birth control is not only it’s the right thing to do for women, it’s good for women, it’s good for their health care, but it’s frankly good public policy.’”

The Planned Parenthood chief, writes Miss Gilbert, “touted artificial birth control [on which PP makes huge profits] as ‘the most normative medical care that exists in America,’ calling the push for its universal availability a ‘no-brainer.’” Interesting choice of terms.

The interview with the liberal talk-show host comes in the midst of a campaign by PP and its fellow-traveling American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, reports Miss Gilbert, “to pressure the US Dept. of Health & Human Services to ensure that all prescription contraception is completely covered by health insurers under ‘preventive care,’” a key program established by ObamaCare.

Miss Gilbert quotes a response from Rita Diller, national director of Stop Planned Parenthood International. “‘In reality, birth control is already widely available,’” said Ms. Diller, “‘to women and even young girls, on a sliding scale basis, so that those who cannot afford the dangerous steroidal pills can receive them at little or no cost.’ … Therefore, she said, covering all birth control as preventive care ‘will not increase its availability but will dramatically increase PP’s profit margin by not only requiring new private health plans to cover 100% of the costs but also requiring state Medicaid programs to pay 100% of the cost for all Medicaid recipients. … If Medicaid is required to pay 100% of the price PP charges for prescription birth control,’” she told LifeSiteNews.com, “‘[PP] will be laughing all the way to the bank, at our expense.’”

Force Does Not Equal ‘Choice’

EVEN THE ‘CHOICE’ TO ABORT ISN’t ENOUGH for the abortion industry and the cartel’s fellow travelers in the ideological Left. No, force is their modus operandi.

So the recent report by former US Sen. Rick Santorum in his Philly.com commentary should come as no surprise. “The American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] … [is] asking the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services,” he writes, “which controls nearly $800 billion in Pres. Obama’s latest budget, to force hospitals to provide abortions or lose federal funding.”

Sen. Santorum cites the “controversial” views of Centers Administrator Donald Berwick, noting the recess-appointed health czar “is overseeing the writing of countless new healthcare regulations. … [T]he ACLU,” he writes, “can’t let an opportunity like that slip by. …

“Apart from the dubious legal notions involved,” writes Mr. Santorum, “the ACLU is contemplating an action that could eliminate at least 15% of the nation’s hospital beds – the proportion provided by Catholic hospitals alone. It’s threatening not only to trample the consciences of religious healthcare workers and institutions,” Sen. Santorum notes, “but to hurt every American through the loss of hospitals, doctors and nurses who can no longer carry out their ministry of healing,” should the ACLU agenda prevail.

The DC-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty “has vowed to defend any hospital,” writes Mr. Santorum, “that comes under attack.”

Suspended in Maryland

THE MARYLAND BOARD OF PHYSICIANS REFUSED last week to lift its Aug. 31 emergency order suspending the license of abortionist Nicola Riley, a collaborator with notorious abortionist Steven Brigham in his late-term abortion racket.

The original order stemmed from a complaint filed against both abortionists relating, reports Operation Rescue in an OR news release, to “a severely botched late-term abortion that required emergency surgery to save the woman’s life.”

That complaint led to the discovery, notes OR, “that [Mr.] Brigham, who is not licensed in Maryland, was operating an illegal late-term abortion scheme where abortions as late as 36 weeks would be started at his office in Voorhees, New Jersey, and completed at a secret abortion clinic in Elkton, Maryland. Police raided the Elkton mill,” recounts OR, “and discovered the remains of 35 aborted babies in the freezer.”

Though Ms. Riley opted to fight the suspension of her license and, reports OR, “submitted additional testimony and documents at [last week’s] hearing,” the physicians board issued a letter to her, dated Oct. 28, stating, reports OR, “‘The Board concluded that the arguments and documents submitted, and the responses to the Board’s questions, did not significantly change the Board’s finding or conclusions regarding the danger to the public which would be posed by Dr. Riley practicing medicine at this time.’”

While expressing thanks “that [Ms.] Riley will not be allowed to victimize more women,” OR’s president Troy Newman stated in the release, “‘We renew our call for criminal charges against [Ms.] Riley, her boss Steven Brigham and all their associates who participated in illegal late-term abortions in Maryland.’”

Ms. Riley continues to commit abortions in Utah, where she continues to be licensed, but her attempt to secure a license in Virginia is on hold while her Maryland license is suspended.

Clear, Unequivocal Message

THE YOUNG CANADIAN LADY who has wowed video viewers with her well-reasoned, instructive appeals for the right to Life, Lia Mills, now 13, released a new video last week in advance of her Friday speech at the International Pro-Life Conference in Ottawa. She appeared on the conference agenda along with such pro-life notables as Dr. John Willke of International Right to Life, Bradley Mattes of Life Issues Institute and Americans United for Life senior counsel Bill Saunders.

Miss Mills’s new video on the personhood of the unborn child can be viewed via the Internet at

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJGFPdspOrY. She has posted an entire collection of Life instructional videos on the YouTube website, and the video of the speech which first brought her to the attention of pro-life North Americans can be seen on our own website at www.LifeAdvocacy.com as a “Featured Item” titled “Watch 12-year-old young woman’s compelling speech on life.”

We recommend that our readers ask candidates for public office – even if they are committed to securing the right to Life – to view the new video, the original speech or any of the Lia Mills collection. This child shall lead them.

Notable Quote

Frances Kissling, founder and ex-president of “Catholics for a Free Choice,” at an October conference at Princeton on abortion, reported by Terrence McKeegan JD for Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (www.c-fam.org): “I don’t care how you accomplish it (the right to abortion), whether through a constitution, the UN, state laws or federal laws, or by the Taliban.”

Advocates for Ignorance

Reprinted from the Internet weblog of pro-life writer Jill Stanek at www.JillStanek.com

An eye-opening debate was held Oct. 20 at Ft. Lewis College in Durango about Colorado’s Amendment 62.

Providing scientific evidence that life begins at fertilization were pro-life groups LifeGuard, Durango Pregnancy Center, Bayfield Christian and Master Plan Ministry.

Arguing to the contrary was Advocates for Choice [A4C], a student group sponsored by Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains to “educate campus audiences.”

Well, I wouldn’t have believed the words that came out of the young turks from A4C unless I saw the video for myself. [Linked at Mrs. Stanek’s ’blog.]

But the same people who constantly – and erroneously – complain pro-lifers make the Life debate into a religious one took the opposite tack this time, saying scientific debate was irrelevant and actually “illegitimate.”

I guess it’s no wonder. The few times they ventured into the scientific arena, they showed themselves to be abysmally ignorant. A few highlights:

“Their researchers say the heart beats in 21 days. There’s people on our side and research that says the heart doesn’t beat until 24 weeks!” [!]

“I mean I have a cold, so I have a virus in my body, and that’s also something little and living inside of me. But if I’m going to try to kill it, I’m not gonna be like, ‘Oh no, it was a virus thing – I just killed a life.’ It’s not the same thing.” [!]

“And again on the biological note, I just want to add really quickly that all of us women out there, we shed fertilized egg pretty much every month.” [!]

There was also this interesting dialogue:

A4C: Gender studies majors? Uh, is there a natural woman?

Crowd: Noooo!

A4C: There is no such thing as “natural woman.”

Our side: I would put out there that probably most of you women do not have a Y chromosome. Okay? There is a natural woman.

A4c: Um, anyone who is born with an X and a Y chromosome is biologically female. [!]

Why the Stem Cell Battle Isn’t Over

Oct. 14, 2010, BreakPoint commentary by Chuck Colson, copyright Prison Fellowship Ministries

I’ve got good news for you and bad news. First, the good news: Scientists, led by Derrick J. Rossi of the Children’s Hospital in Boston, have announced that they have developed a safe and highly effective alternative to embryonic stemcell research. It’s one that could potentially produce treatments and cures for everything from Alzheimer’s to spinal-cord injuries.

Researchers love embryonic stem cells because they can easily differentiate into many cell types, what’s called pluripotency. People like me, concerned about protecting human dignity, object to embryonic stemcell research, because it requires the destruction of innocent human life. But the new technique, using molecules known as “messenger RNA” [mRNA], reprograms ordinary skin cells into pluripotent cells that are virtually identical to embryonic stem cells.

The best news is that researchers don’t have to sacrifice human life in order to obtain these new mRNA cells. Reporting on the breakthrough, the Washington Post said it “could mark a pivotal moment in the long, contentious history of embryonic stemcell research.”

Now for the bad news: Despite the breakthrough, the war over embryonic stemcell research is far from over.  Dr. Rossi, lead researcher, said embryo-based research should continue – if for no other reason so that alternatives to it can be “validated.”

This stubbornness makes no sense, until you realize that it is part of a larger pattern. For the last 50 years, scientists have developed more than 70 treatments and cures using morally uncontroversial adult stem cells, such as skin cells, including for conditions such as nerve cell damage and multiple sclerosis. Yet for years, researchers said they needed to have access to pluripotent embryonic stem cells, which so far have produced exactly zero cures.

Then a few years ago other scientists developed what are called induced pluripotent stem cells, which appear identical to embryo-based cells – again, without the killing. But researchers, citing potential but not actual risks of induced pluripotent research, insisted that embryonic stem cells are still needed.

Now, in the fact of new, groundbreaking research that addresses even these purely hypothetical concerns, scientists’ first impulse is to say they still need life-killing embryonic stemcell research. Over the decades, every scientific objection to discontinuing this research has been answered, and yet they still want the right to dispose of human life. Why?

Could it be that this argument isn’t ultimately about science, which involves looking at the evidence? The evidence is clear and is becoming ever more clear by the day. It’s really about worldview, and the secular worldview so prevalent among scientists today says that human beings are simply clumps of raw material to be exploited for the greater good. Many scientists have forgotten the Christian worldview, which gave rise to science in the first place and which sees every human life as worth protecting because we are made in God’s image.

That’s why we will never win this argument simply offering pragmatic responses. Such arguments have their place, of course, but we have to help people see the moral implications of their worldview.

And that means showing them why killing innocent human life is always wrong, whatever the latest scientific breakthrough says.

Permission granted to quote with attribution. Reproduction rights granted only by express authorization.