Some of the so-called Blue Dog Democrats cave on health care reform and the roller coaster ride accelerates. Stuck on the ride are hundreds of thousands of unborn babies who lives are threatened by this monster. While there is not enough discussion about the sweeping abortion mandates in the public debate, what is coming to light is the threat to older people and those with terminal illnesses. Obama himself has been very outspoken about what treatment(s) Grandma should not receive — a pain pill is his answer.
So, what is the status? It changes by the hour. Depending on which commentator is pontificating, there are enough Blue Dog Dems to vote H.R. 3200 out of the House Energy Committee, the last hurdle before the bill hits the House floor in September.
Lying in the weeds are the Stupak-Pitts amendments to H.R. 3200 which will be offered at the House Energy Committee mark-up this week. These amendments would do four things:
1. Exclude abortion as a basic benefit
2. Prevent direct funding of abortions
3. Protect state and federal laws that restrict abortions
4. Provide conscience protections for medical professionals.
If these amendments are not adopted, a full-scale assault on H.R. 3200 and its companions begins immediately as our elected officials return to their home districts.
It looks like there won’t be a vote in the U.S. House on healthcare this week. But House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said it was possible that a vote could come this weekend or early next week.
The bill has been tied up in the House Energy and Commerce Committee where it has strong opposition from pro-life Democrats who are concerned that the bill could mandate abortion coverage and force taxpayers to pay for abortions.
This week, the committee is considering amendments, including amendments that would specifically exclude abortion from the bill. Representative Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, has made it clear that 40 pro-life Democrats will stop the bill in committee or on the House floor if abortion is not excluded from the bill.
All of this, of course, has frustrated pro-abortion committee chair, Representative Henry Waxman to no end. He has threatened to bypass a committee vote and take the bill to the full House floor for a vote.
Will the House actually vote on health care reform before the members clear out for the August recess? It’s anyone’s guess at this point.
In the meantime, keep those calls and emails going into the offices of Senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold as well as your own House member! Visit our website at WisconsinRighttoLife.org where you’ll find a ton of information about this pressing issue and what you can do.
Will the House vote on the abortion-mandate, euthanasia-friendly Obamacare on Wednesday? No one knows. Speaker Pelosi continues to maintain she has the votes. Congressmen and groups are being “bought off” by changes to the House bill. But, is it enough?
It appears from news articles that Wisconsin’s Ron Kind is now on board after voting against the bill in committee.
Our hero, Congressman Bart Stupak of Michigan, and his 39 pro-life colleagues are holding firm on voting against and even preventing the bill from going forward through rules if the abortion exclusion amendment is not adopted. Pro-abortion Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), Chairman of the House Energy Committee, is so annoyed by Stupak he is asking for the bill to bypass his committee so that pro-life amendments cannot be considered. Of the pro-life Congressmen, Waxman says: “We’re not going to let them empower the Republicans to control the committee.”
It is incredibly intensive. The time for action is NOW. Please go here for information on contacting your Congressman.
Last night’s webcast on how to fight the Obama Abortion Mandate was a huge success. In case you missed it, you can listen to the webcast here.
Senator Harry Reid has backed down — no health care vote this summer. What will Speaker Pelosi do? She still claims she has the votes in the House, but her credibility is not very high right now.
An Obama staffer met with folks from Planned Parenthood last week and urged the more than 400 participants to fight even harder to have abortion included in health care reform. Tina Tchen assured them that Obama was their best friend and is committed to abortion and health care. No surprise there.
Now is not the time to be complacent. To date, we have focused on the abortion mandates in health care reform. Everyone knows that the proposed plans will lead to rationed care. Obama himself has alluded to too much care for people at the end of life, for older people. This is his plan to supposedly save money. It is a disaster for older people, sick people, and people with disabilities.
We have a temporary reprieve — but the battle for life continues.
Imagine Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a gigantic headache. She has promised Obama she will deliver a majority vote on Obamacare. Now 40 members of her caucus have given their ultimatum. Abortion not excluded — we’re not included.
Led by Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, the House Energy and Commerce Committee may adopt pro-life amendments rejected in the Senate version of the bill. If Stupak and his colleagues do not get their abortion exclusion amendments, they will not only vote against the bill but against rules to move it forward. BRAVO!!!!!
Here’s the best part — Stupak is not buying into Obama-smooth. Obama is telling the media he doesn’t want to “wade into” the abortion debate. His staff says he wants to leave abortion coverage to “medical experts.” Smooth talk that is meaningless. Once Obama gets his way, he can cut and slice the abortion issue any way he wants. Another bravo for Stupak!!
The right-to-life movement is also not buying Obama-smooth. Tonight there will be a national webcast to discuss how we can work even more diligently to Stop the Obama Abortion Agenda.
You can find information on joining the webcast here.
I have a mental picture of Obama feinting left, then right. Trying to dodge the direct hit from the giant fist that has abortion mandates in health care reform written all over it. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded to the abortion mandate question yesterday that unnamed “medical experts” would decide what procedures would be covered. Get it — it won’t be Obama, who wants to keep his hands “clean.” But, it will be someone his administration appoints. What a dodge!
Then Gibbs said that Obama supports the Hyde Amendment — you know — the amendment that prohibits federal taxpayer funding of abortion. The amendment that Obama strongly opposed as a Senator and during the campaign. Wow — what an overnight conversion, if it can be believed.
In the meantime, Planned Parenthood is getting hysterical. Did you know that we are publishing lies about an amendment that would have provided a woman with preventive health? That we want to deny women breast cancer screenings and pap smears? “But there is no longer any doubt that anti-choice forces have zeroed in on the effort to build health care reform majorities in the House and Senate as their chance to strike a devastating blow to women’s access to reproductive health care, including …abortion,” sniped PP president Cecile Richards.
PP is even beating up on one of its own, urging its followers to contact pro-abortion Senator Max Baucus to demand that abortion be included in health care reform legislation. Stay tuned. The infighting is getting more and more intense.
Congressman Ron Kind of Wisconsin was one of three Democrats to vote against Obamacare in the House Ways and Means Committee. It is unclear whether funding for abortion was a consideration for Kind but he essentially voted for what Wisconsin Right to Life is promoting — vote against a health care plan that doesn’t specifically exclude abortion mandates and subsidies.
Congressman David Obey put out an HHS appropriations bill which includes the Hyde Amendment, conscience protection for health care workers, and language preventing the destruction of human embryos for research. This is very welcome news! Wisconsin Right to Life engineered a full court press in the Obey district to urge him to include the right-to-life provisions that are annually placed into appropriations bills.
A word of caution. Some in the pro-life movement are claiming that with the Hyde Amendment in place, there is no need to specifically exclude abortion in Obamacare. “This is a dodge,” says Doug Johnson, Legislative Director for National Right to Life. “The Hyde Amendment is not a permanent law, but merely a ‘limitation amendment’ that is patched on to the annual appropriations bill for Health and Human Services.”
Johnson adds that H.R. 3200, the House version of Obamacare, “directly appropriates massive subsidies for premiums and cost-sharing that would not flow through the HHS appropriations bill and thus would not be subject to the Hyde Amendment, even in the short term.”
Prominent author Deal Hudson calls it like it is with an assist from the most unlikely source — Chris Matthews. You remember the photos of the smiling Obamas with the pope? Differing views of what they talked about?
Pope: We must protect unborn babies from abortion.
Obama: I want to reduce the number of abortions. Let’s talk about the poor and the Mideast.
Let me make it clear that the poor and the Mideast are important subjects. But Obama pulled a page out of Pelosi’s book when she was called in by her Archbishop. Try to change the subject away from abortion.
Hudson wrote a great article for insidecatholic.com on Obama misleading the pope on July 16. Hudson points out that:
The official Vatican spokesman said of the meeting between the President and the Pope that: “The President explicitly expressed his commitment to reducing the numbers of abortions and to listen to the church’s concern on moral issues.”
Senator Mikulski was forced to admit that the health care reform bill being considered by the Senate includes abortion coverage.
Using Planned Parenthood’s own numbers, abortions will likely increase by 240,000 to 420,000 in the first year alone under the proposed abortion mandates.
Obama apologists claim he wants to reduce the need for abortions — read, more sex education, birth control, etc.
Even Chris Matthews sees the ruse. “He goes over to see the pope and says they’re going to reduce the number of abortions, and then that same week he pushes to subsidize abortion? You can’t do that!”
Health care reform is on the move with the Czar in Chief, President Obama, pushing hard for enactment by the end of July. National Right to Life has issued a Condition Red because both the Senate and House bills “pose a grave and immediate threat to the pro-life cause.”
Yesterday, the Senate Health Committee adopted the Kennedy bill on a 13-10 party-line vote. This time, Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania voted for the bill, even though it did not include the abortion exclusion amendments defeated on Monday.
If there is no abortion exclusion in either the House or Senate bill, “virtually every insurance plan would be required to cover elective abortion, every local health network would be required to recruit abortionists, and many state abortion laws could be overridden,” says Doug Johnson of NRLC. “The bill also would result in taxpayer funding of abortion on demand.”
Everyone must call their Congressman and Senators at 202-224-3121 and urge them to vote against any health care plan that does not contain an abortion exclusion. This is not a request, it is an ORDER to everyone who cares about protecting human life.
National Right to Life has long maintained that the Obama administration and its allies in Congress would enact FOCA, the extreme Freedom of Choice Act, bit by bit. Kind of a death by a thousand cuts. Health care reform appears to be the opening salvo.
As a Senate Committee marks up its version of health care reform, Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland was forced to admit under questioning by Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah that an amendment she offered would include abortion coverage. The committee voted 12-11 to adopt her amendment, with Democratic Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania joining Republicans to oppose the amendment.
Yesterday, pro-life Senators offered four amendments which were defeated 12-11 with Casey once again joining the Republicans. The amendments were:
1. An amendment to remove the abortion mandate
2. An amendment to remove the abortion subsidies
3. An amendment to protect state laws limiting abortions and abortion funding from being nullified by federal law under the bill.
4. An amendment that would protect the conscience rights of health care workers.
Sound a little bit like FOCA?
Doug Johnson of NRLC said: “These bills contain provisions that will result in mandates that virtually all health plans pay for abortion and that virtually all health networks establish abortions providers. They will provide federal funding for abortion on demand and nullify state laws regulating abortion.”
Sounding a lot like FOCA!!!
The time for action is now. You can make a huge difference by contacting your federal legislators TODAY!
ACTION NEEDED:
Go to the National Right to Life Legislative Action Center here Use the form there to send messages to Wisconsin’s two U.S. Senators, Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold and to your own representative in the U.S. House of Representatives. Urge them to oppose any federal “health care reform” legislation that does not explicitly exclude abortion.When you fill in your mailing address, you messages will be automatically sent to the appropriate U.S. House member and to our two U.S. Senators, Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold.
In addition, please TELEPHONE the offices of your two U.S. Senators, give your name and address, and tell the senators’s staff persons that you wish to be recorded as “opposed to Senator Kennedy’s health care bill because it contains numerous pro-abortion mandates. The offices of any U.S. Senator can be reached through 202-224-3121. Also, please TELEPHONE the office of your U.S. House member, give you name and address, and inform the staff person that you wish to be recorded as “opposed to the House Democratic Leadership health care reform bill because it contains many pro-abortion mandates.” You can reach any House member’s office through 202-225-3121. If you do not know who your House member is, giving your name and address will allow your message to go to the appropriate House member.
![[Email]](http://www.wrtl.org/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
![[Facebook]](http://www.wrtl.org/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[MySpace]](http://www.wrtl.org/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myspace.png)
![[Twitter]](http://www.wrtl.org/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
