Life Advocacy Briefing

Call Now to Oppose Pillard Nomination

THE SENATE IS NOW TURNING ITS ATTENTION TO CONFIRMATIONS. Readers are asked to call their two US Senators now to urge their votes against all motions advancing the confirmation of radical law professor Cornelia Pillard to the bench of the US District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, a critical post for an unworthy nominee. Senators may be reached via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-3121. Urgent, please!

Getting Out of Town

OUR HOUSE MEMBERS & SENATORS HAVE AT LAST FINISHED a long siege of frustration and pressure. The now-relieved stalemate over the Fiscal Year 2014 appropriations, extended from FY-2013 by a short-term Continuing Resolution to rev the federal government back into full-throttle power, was resolved last Wednesday night after a deal was cut between Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), whose incendiary rhetoric poured gas on the flames of disagreement until a major bond-rating agency threatened discipline.

After House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) found last Tuesday that his party Members would loudly reject his team’s compromise proposal, he punted back to the Senate and waited for Senate action. The House voted shortly after the Senate, and the President chalked up a victory that further weakened the trust of the American people in our government.

The final package was complex enough that we cannot offer an informed opinion at this time, but we take this opportunity to comment on the outcome, and we publish at the close of this Life Advocacy Briefing the voting records from both the Senate and the House. We publish these roll calls because of our belief that our readers will want to know this information, though the connection to Life-related issues is tenuous enough that we cannot characterize them as “voting pro-life” or “voting anti-life.” These roll calls will not included in our annual index of Life votes, to be published later this year.

We do wish to thank all those Members – both House and Senate (including certain of the Leaders) – who fought hard to use this must-pass legislation as a means of blocking implementation of ObamaCare. Though ultimately the political climate demanded action without that need being met, we remain confident that rejection of this government engineering of our medical care and insurance systems will continue to build within the American people. And we look forward to the vote of the people; elections do have consequences. To quote again Winston Churchill: Never give up.

Late-Term Abortuary Goes Down

PRO-LIFE CITIZENS IN OHIO HAVE VERIFIED THE CLOSURE of a “notorious abortion facility,” writes Ben Johnson for LifeSiteNews.com, “run by a late-term abortionist.”

After announcing closure in September, the Center for Women’s Health in Cleveland-suburban Shaker Heights has indeed “shut its doors,” reports Mr. Johnson. The shop was operated by a late-term abortionist named Martin Ruddock, whom former Planned Parenthood director-turned-pro-life-leader Abby Johnson has identified as having “helped contribute to the development of the partial-birth abortion technique,” writes Mr. Johnson, who notes Mr. Ruddock committed “abortions up to 30 weeks gestation.”

The notorious partial-birth killing technique, which has been outlawed by Congress in situations involving interstate commerce or federal facilities, “was [Mr.] Ruddock’s ‘surgery of choice’ for women after 20 weeks” of pregnancy, reports Mr. Johnson. He attributes the report to “a co-worker” who spoke about him “in 1997.”

In 2011 Gov. John Kasich signed legislation, reports LifeSiteNews, “banning abortion after 20 weeks if the child is found to be viable outside the womb, which undercut [Mr.] Ruddock’s practice.”

For many years, Mr. Ruddock has vocally resisted state policies tightening regulation of abortuaries, apparently as bad for business. LifeSiteNews quotes Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life, opining “‘that Martin Ruddock had a consistent track record for disregarding health standards and putting women’s lives in danger. … Women are safer today in Cuyahoga County,’” he said in Mr. Johnson’s report, “‘because this abortion clinic is closed.’”

Mr. Johnson adds a warning to citizens in other states.  Mr. “Ruddock,” he writes, “told associates he may move to another state with less restrictive laws.”

Another Ohio abortuary where he has worked, Toledo’s “Center for Choice … was closed in June,” notes Mr. Johnson, “after none of its practitioners could win admitting privileges at local hospitals, as required by a new Ohio law.” A third Ohio abortuary, “Cleveland’s Capital Care Network also closed this year,” reports LifeSiteNews.

Sensible state laws subjecting abortuaries to reasonable, normal standards of medicine are achieving a contraction in the abortion industry’s infestation of America. Keep ’em coming!

Buyer Beware

Commentary by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus, reprinted from the Washington Times 

Agree or disagree with public funding of abortion – a significant majority of Americans oppose subsidizing abortion – but no one likes to be misled, fooled, deceived or defrauded.

In the run-up to passage of ObamaCare, Americans were repeatedly told and reassured by Pres. Obama himself, including in a speech to a joint session of Congress in October 2009, that “under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion.”

In an 11th-hour ploy to garner the votes of a remnant of pro-life Congressional Democrats absolutely needed for passage in the House, the President issued an executive order that said, “the Act maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to newly created health insurance exchanges.”

It turns out those promises have not been kept. Americans woke up to the launch of the ObamaCare exchanges on Oct. 1, only to discover that we’ve been misled and deceived.

As with Mr. Obama’s promise that Americans can keep their current health insurance policy if they like it, implementation in the ObamaCare exchanges of massive public funding of abortion undermines the President’s credibility and word. As a direct result, hundreds of thousands of unborn babies will needlessly die from dismemberment in surgical abortion or from chemical poisoning and forced expulsion from the womb.

According to the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the new ObamaCare abortion coverage may lead to between 71,000 and 111,500 more publicly funded abortions each year.

ObamaCare not only violates the landmark Hyde Amendment with impunity but violates a lesser known policy I authored in 1983 – the Smith Amendment – which prohibits abortion funding in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program.

At its core, the Hyde Amendment has two parts. It prohibits funding for abortion and funding for any insurance plan that includes abortion except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.

Rollout of the ObamaCare exchanges reveals that many health insurance plans throughout the nation will subsidize abortion-on-demand – even late-term abortions. For example, the preliminary data suggests that every insurance plan on the Connecticut and Rhode Island exchanges will pay for abortion on demand.

Billions of taxpayers’ dollars will now be handed out as credits to buy pro-abortion health insurance – a clear violation of the Hyde Amendment’s fundamental principle of restricting funds to abortion-subsidizing health insurance plans.

ObamaCare further breaks with long-standing law by establishing new abortion surcharges and an unseemly marketing secrecy clause.

The new law requires premium payers to be assessed an abortion surcharge every month to pay for abortions. However, many pro-life Americans may unwittingly purchase pro-abortion plans because of a marketing secrecy clause embedded in ObamaCare, which stipulates that the surcharge be minimally disclosed only at the time of enrollment. In other words, bury it in the fine print.

To overcome this highly deceptive practice, I’ve introduced the Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act, a bill that requires information regarding either inclusion or exclusion of abortion coverage as well as the existence of an abortion surcharge to be “prominently displayed.” (To rid ObamaCare of its massive expansion of abortion-on-demand facilitation and funding. 136 bipartisan co-sponsors and I have also introduced the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, HR-7.)

The amendment I offered three decades ago to ban abortion funding in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Programs is still current law. Like the Hyde Amendment, the Smith Amendment prohibits the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) from funding or even providing monies to administer any plan that includes abortion. Under ObamaCare, OPM administers the new multistate health plans, one of which by law must be pro-life. That raises the question: What about the others?

Making matters worse, the Office of Personnel Management issued a regulation a few days ago concerning health insurance coverage for Members of Congress and their staffs that violates the Smith Amendment. Pursuant to the regulation, OPM is poised to administer and make payments to insurance plans that include abortion.

Abortion isn’t health care – it kills babies and harms women. We live in an age of ultrasound imaging – the ultimate window to the womb and the child who resides there. We are in the midst of a fetal healthcare revolution, an explosion of benign interventions designed to diagnose, treat and cure the youngest patients.

ObamaCare’s abortion mandate violates federal law and makes taxpayers complicit in the culture of death. This is not reform.

Senate Voting Record

HR-2775 – Appropriations Continuing Resolution & Debt Ceiling Temporary Deal – Oct. 16, 2013 – Passed – 81-18 (Democrats in italics)

Voting “no”: Sessions & Shelby/AL; Rubio/FL; Crapo & Risch/ID; Grassley/IA; Roberts/KS; Paul/KY; Vitter/LA; Heller/NV; Coburn/OK; Toomey/PA; Scott/SC; Cornyn & Cruz/TX; Lee/UT; Johnson/WI; Enzi/WY

Voting “yes”: Begich & Murkowski/AK; Flake & McCain/AZ; Boozman & Pryor/AR; Boxer & Feinstein/CA; Bennet & Udall/CO; Blumenthal & Murphy/CT; Carper & Coons/DE; Nelson/FL; Chambliss & Isakson/GA; Hirono & Schatz/HI; Durbin & Kirk/IL; Coats & Donnelly/IA; Harkin/IA; Moran/KS; McConnell/KY; Landrieu/LA; Collins & King (I)/ME; Cardin & Mikulski/MD; Markey & Warren/MA; Levin & Stabenow/MI; Franken & Klobuchar/MN; Cochran & Wicker/MS; Blunt & McCaskill/MO; Baucus & Tester/MT; Fischer & Johanns/NE; Reid/NV; Ayotte & Shaheen/NH; Chiesa & Menendez/NJ; Heinrich & Udall/NM; Gillibrand & Schumer/NY; Burr & Hagan/NC; Heitkamp & Hoeven/ND; Brown & Portman/OH; Merkley & Wyden/OR; Casey/PA; Reed & Whitehouse/RI; Graham/SC; Johnson & Thune/SD; Alexander & Corker/TN; Hatch/UT; Leahy & Sanders (I)/VT; Kaine & Warner/VA; Cantwell & Murray/WA; Manchin & Rockefeller/WV; Baldwin/WI; Barasso/WY

Not Voting: Inhofe/OK.

House Voting Record

HR-2775 – Motion to Concur in Senate Amendments (Final Passage) – Appropriations Continuing Resolution & Debt Ceiling Temporary Deal – Oct. 16, 2013 – Passed – 285-144 (Democrats in italics)

Voting “no”: Aderholt, Brooks, Roby, Rogers/AL; Franks, Gosar, Salmon, Schweikert/AZ; Campbell, Denham, Hunter, LaMalfa, McClintock, Rohrabacher, Royce/CA; Lamborn/CO; DeSantis, Mica, Miller, Nugent, Posey, Radel, Rooney, Ross, Southerland, Yoho/FL; Broun, Collins, Gingrey, Graves, Kingston, Price, A. Scott, Westmoreland, Woodall/GA; Labrador/ID; Hultgren/IL; Bucshon, Messer, Rokita, Stutzman, Walorski/IN; King/IA; Huelskamp, Pompeo, Yoder/KS; Barr, Massie/KY; Cassidy, Fleming, Scalise/LA; Harris/MD; Amash, Bentivolio, Huizenga, Miller, Walberg/MI; Bachmann/MN; Nunnelee, Palazzo/MS; Graves, Hartzler, Long, Luetkemeyer, Smith, Wagner/MO; Amodei/NV; Garrett/NJ; Pearce/NM; Collins, Reed/NY; Ellmers, Foxx, Holding, Hudson, Jones, Meadows/NC; Chabot, Gibbs, Johnson, Jordan, Latta, Renacci, Turner, Wenstrup/OH; Bridenstine, Lankford, Lucas, Mullin/OK; Walden/OR; Marino, Perry, Pitts, Rothfus/PA; Duncan, Gowdy, Mulvaney, Rice, Sanford, Wilson/SC; Noem/SD; Black, Blackburn, DesJarlais, Duncan, Fincher, Fleischmann, Roe/TN; Barton, Brady, Burgess, Carter, Conaway, Culberson, Farenthold, Flores, Gohmert, Granger, Hall, Hensarling, S. Johnson, Marchant, McCaul, Neugebauer, Olson, Poe, Sessions, Smith, Stockman, Thornberry, Weber, Williams/TX; Bishop, Chaffetz, Stewart/UT; Forbes, Goodlatte, Griffith, Hurt/VA; Duffy, Petri, Ryan, Sensenbrenner/WI; Lummis/WY.

Voting “yes”: Bachus, Sewell/AL; Young/AK; Barber, Grijalva, Kirkpatrick, Pastor, Sinema/AZ; Cotton, Crawford, Griffin, Womack/AR; Bass, Becerra, Bera, Brownley, Calvert, Capps, Cardenas, Chu, Cook, Costa, Davis, Eshoo, Farr, Garamendi, Hahn, Honda, Huffman, Issa, Lee, Lofgren, Lowenthal, Matsui, McCarthy, McKeon, McNerney, Gary Miller, Geo. Miller, Napolitano, Negrete-McLeod, Nunes, Pelosi, Peters, Roybal-Allard, Ruiz, Linda Sanchez, Loretta Sanchez, Schiff, Sherman, Speier, Swalwell, Takano, Thompson, Valadao, Vargas, Waters, Waxman/CA; Coffman, DeGette, Gardner, Himes, Perlmutter, Polis, Tipton/CO; Courtney, DeLauro, Esty, Larson/CT; Carney/DE; Bilirakis, Brown, Buchanan, Castor, Crenshaw, Deutch, Diaz-Balart, Frankel, Garcia, Grayson, Hastings, Murphy, Ros-Lehtinen, Wasserman-Schultz, Webster, Wilson/FL; Barrow, Bishop, Johnson, Lewis, D. Scott/GA; Gabbard, Hanabusa /HI; Simpson/ID; Bustos, D. Davis, R. Davis, Duckworth, Enyart, Foster, Gutierrez, Kelly, Kinzinger, Lipinski, Quigley, Roskam, Schakowsky, Schneider, Schock, Shimkus/IL; Brooks, Carson, Visclosky, Young/IN; Braley, Latham, Loebsack/IA; Jenkins/KS; Guthrie, Rogers, Whitfield, Yarmuth/KY; Boustany, Richmond/LA; Michaud, Pingree/ME; Cummings, Delaney, Edwards, Hoyer, Ruppersberger, Sarbanes, VanHollen/MD; Capuano, Keating, Kennedy, Lynch, McGovern, Neal, Tierney, Tsongas/MA; Benishek, Camp, Conyers, Dingell, Kildee, Levin, Rogers, Upton/MI; Ellison, Kline, McCollum, Nolan, Paulsen, Peters, Peterson, Walz/MN;Harper, Thompson/MS; Clay, Cleaver/MO; Daines/MT; Fortenberry, Smith, Terry/NE; Heck, Horsford, Titus/NV; Kuster, Shea-Porter/NH; Andrews, Frelinghuysen, Holt, Lance, LoBiondo, Pallone, Pascrell, Payne, Runyan, Sires, Smith/NJ; Lujan, Grisham/NM; Bishop, Clarke, Crowley, Engel, Gibson, Grimm, Hanna, Higgins, Israel, Jeffries, King, Lowey, Maffei, C. Maloney, S. Maloney, Meeks, Meng, Nadler, Owens, Rangel, Serrano, Slaughter, Tonko, Velazquez/NY; Butterfield, Coble, McHenry, McIntyre, Pittenger, Price, Watt/NC; Cramer/ND; Beatty, Boehner, Fudge, Joyce, Kaptur, Ryan, Stivers, Tiberi/OH; Cole/OK; Blumenauer, Bonamici, DeFazio, Schrader/OR; Barletta, Brady, Cartwright, Dent, Doyle, Fattah, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, Kelly, Meehan, Murphy, Schwartz, Shuster, Thompson/PA; Cicilline, Langevin/RI; Clyburn/SC; Cohen, Cooper/TN; Castro, Cuellar, Doggett; Gallego, A.Green, G.Green, Hinojosa, Jackson-Lee, E.B. Johnson, O’Rourke, Veasey, Vela/TX; Matheson/UT; Welch/VT; Cantor, Connelly, Moran, Rigell, Scott,Wittman, Wolf/VA; DelBene, Hastings, Heck, Herrera-Beutler, Kilmer, Larsen, McDermott, McMorris-Rodgers, Reichert, Smith/WA; Capito, McKinley, Rahall/WV; Kind, Moore, Pocan,Ribble/WI.

Not Voting: Young/FL, Rush/IL, McCarthy/NY.