Wisconsin Right to Life is unequivocally opposed to a reported plan by a Wisconsin man to kill the Madison Planned Parenthood abortionist. The man traveled to Madison with a gun but was apprehended before he had time to carry out this heinous act.
This type of plot or activity is in complete opposition to the mission of Wisconsin Right to Life which is to protect all human life from conception to natural death. It is both our policy and our practice to condemn this type of activity when it surfaces as we do at this time. Wisconsin Right to Life is greatly relieved that the plan was not completed.
Last week, the Wisconsin Joint Finance Committee passed a motion requiring that state tax dollars (GPR) and federal Title V monies for family planning be allocated to public health departments. Recipients may not in turn provide these funds to organizations that provide abortion services or abortion referrals, or any organizations that have affiliates that provide abortion services of abortion referrals. This motion pretty much eliminates any of these monies going to Planned Parenthood of WI or any of its affiliates.
Other states are also passing measures to defund Planned Parenthood. In Indiana, a new law deprives PP of IN from receiving federal funds given to the state through Medicaid. There were numbers of other provisions in the Indiana law, all of which are being challenged in court by PP. PP alleges that the law would violate existing contracts and put PP in the position of having to choose between performing abortions and receiving taxpayer dollars. Are we all crying here?
Enter the Obama administration which is mulling over entry into the legal challenge. An Obama official told the New York Times that the administration will not approve changes in the Indiana law and appears ready to threaten Indiana’s Medicaid funds.
The impact of the Indiana law is already being felt — Medicaid recipients who have gone to PP in the past must now find another service provider. PP claims, as it always does, that women will be denied services. In fact, Indiana has over 800 Medicaid service providers.
PP doesn’t like being squeezed. Its “halo” is becoming tarnished, and rightly so. For too long, PP has sold the public on the concept that it helps women. Federal and state statistics reveal that abortion is big business for PP, and it, along with its friends in the Obama administration, will claw and fight to keep its status as the country’s abortion giant.
It’s official! Senator Rich Zipperer and Rep. Robin Vos have introduced SB 92, legislation to allow Wisconsin to opt-out of abortion coverage in the health care exchanges set up by Obamacare. The bill has 10 Senate sponsors and 29 Assembly sponsors.
There is not much a state can do to impact the abortion components which are part of the national health care law. Obamacare does allow states to opt-out of abortion coverage in the health care exchanges. SB 92 will accomplish that purpose.
Wisconsin Right to Life praises Sen. Zipperer and Rep. Vos for their excellent work on this bill which they decided to author right after the passage of Obamacare a year ago. We will be working closely with them to ensure that SB 92 becomes law.
A rock star is a person who runs around the stage, hugs microphones, acts crazy and does whatever it takes to get attention. One seldom thinks of rock stars as real people with real emotions. Steven Tyler fits the first description, but it is revealing to learn that he is also a traumatized post-abortion father.
In his newly-released tell-all book, Tyler tells the story about the abortion his girl friend had when Tyler was in his late 20s. “It was a big crisis. It’s a major thing when you’re growing something with a woman, but they convinced us that it would never work out and would ruin our lives…You go to the doctor and they put the needle in her belly and they squeeze the stuff in and you watch. And it comes out dead. I was pretty devastated. In my mind, I’m going, Jesus, what have I done?” Wrenching stuff to read — you can palpably feel the emotion he experienced at this awful time.
One of Tyler’s friends said of the event, “So they had the abortion and it really messed Steven up because it was a boy. He…saw the whole thing and it [messed] him up big time.” Tyler coped with drugs and drink. He trashed hotel rooms, raged at bandmates.
When Tyler eventually married and his wife was expecting their first child, he was still haunted by the abortion. “It affected me later…I was afraid. I thought we’d give birth to a six-headed cow because of what I’d done with other women. The real-life guilt was very traumatic for me. Still hurts.”
Post-abortion trauma knows no boundaries and can affect anyone — mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, friends. Tyler did fathers a huge favor by revealing the agony a father feels when his baby is aborted. He has used his unfortunate experience to hopefully educate a nation of fathers.
The 2010 elections resulted in strong right-to-life majorities in both houses of the state legislature. Now the State Senate majority is in jeopardy because numbers of recall elections will take place this summer.
Recall petitions have been filed against Republican Senators Alberta Darling, Dan Kapanke, Randy Hopper, Bob Cowles, Luther Olsen, and Sheila Harsdorf. Five of these Senators are strongly pro-life and the sixth votes pro-life a majority of the time.
Recall petitions have been filed against Democratic Senators Robert Wirch, Jim Holperin and Dave Hansen. All three are strongly pro-abortion.
Wisconsin Right to Life is non-partisan. However, if the Democrats flip three Senate seats, a pro-abortion Senate leadership will be in place and Wisconsin Right to Life backed bills will not receive a vote or become law.
Wisconsin Right to Life will be heavily involved in providing voter education about the candidates to preserve the right-to-life majority in the Senate. It is vital that this majority be preserved so that the lifesaving WRTL legislative agenda can be enacted.
As court cases go, there are many steps in the process of a court challenge. Drs. James Sherley and Theresa Deisher, two adult stem cell researchers, asked a U.S. District Court judge last year to prohibit the Obama administration from funding embryonic stem cell research.. Their claim is that the Obama administration’s order to use taxpayer dollars to destroy human embryos and conduct the research is in violation of the Dickey-Wicker amendment which prohibits such funding, and discriminates against adult stem cell researchers.
In August, 2010, U.S. District Judge Royce Lambeth agreed with Sherley and Deisher and issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the federal government from funding embryonic stem cell research. The Obama administration asked the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to stay the Lambeth preliminary injunction. Late last week, by a 2-1 vote, the Appeals Court vacated the preliminary injunction and taxpayer funding can go forward. Judge Lambeth has yet to issue a decision on the merits of the original lawsuit.
Wisconsin Right to Life will keep you updated on this important case as it winds through the court system. You can read the Court of Appeals opinion and dissent here.
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