Press Conference on Abortion Mandates

NRLC Federal Legislation Director Douglas Johnson participated in a press conference organized by pro-life Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) in front of the United States House of Representatives to discuss abortion mandates in health care “reform.”  Among the participants were House Pro-Life Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Concerned Women for America’s Wendy Wright and Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins.

Pictures courtesy of NRLC Communications Assistant Jessica Rodgers.

Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) speaks at a press conference on abortion mandates on July 28, 2009 in front of the U.S. House of Representatives. Press Conference on abortion mandates in health care, July 28, 2009.

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) speaks on abortion mandates in health care, July 28, 2009.

Congressman Mike Pence addresses reporters at a press conference on abortion mandates in health care, July 28, 2009.

Pelosi Double Talk

Pelosi Doubletalk on Abortion:  Hear House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) duck, weave, stammer, and prevaricate in response to a question from CNN’s John King about whether the Obama health bill will pay for abortions (July 26, 2009). 

Letter to Senate on Sotomayor

The following letter was sent by National Right to Life to members of the U.S. Senate on July 27, 2009.   

 July 27, 2009

 The Honorable Harry Reid
Majority Leader
United States Senate
S-221 The Capitol   
Washington, D.C.  20510

The Honorable Mitch McConnell
Republican Leader
S-230 The Capitol
Washington, D.C.  20510

Dear Leader Reid and Leader McConnell:

On behalf of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of right-to-life organizations in all 50 states, we write to express the opposition of our organization to the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.

 As a judge, Ms. Sotomayor has encountered little in the way of abortion-related litigation, either at the district court or the court of appeals.  In the single ruling that she authored that bore directly on an abortion-related federal policy, Center for Reproductive Law and Policy v. Bush, the result was unambiguously governed by the precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Second Circuit.  Yet, there are many troubling indications that Ms. Sotomayor believes that it is the proper role of the U.S. Supreme Court to construct and enforce constitutional doctrines on social policy questions, even where the text and history of the Constitution provide no basis for removing an issue from the realm of lawmaking by the duly elected representatives of the people.

 Legal abortion on demand was imposed by seven Supreme Court justices in Roe v. Wade.  Roe was an exercise in judicial legislation, aptly branded “an exercise of raw judicial power” by dissenting Justice Byron White.  The ruling lacked any real basis in the text of the Constitution, and imposed a policy that was completely at odds with the intent of the lawmakers who crafted and ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. 

 The evidence indicates that Ms. Sotomayor approves of the Roe ruling and approves of the type of judicial activism that produced it.  For a period of 12 years (1980-1992), prior to becoming a judge, Ms. Sotomayor served on the governing board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), and for part of that time she was the chair of the PRLDEF Litigation Committee.  During her tenure on the board, the PRLDEF was actively involved in litigation that attempted to persuade the Supreme Court to expand the judge-created “right to abortion,” often beyond what the Court was willing to embrace.  During this period, the fund joined briefs at the U.S. Supreme Court in six abortion-related cases.  These briefs urged the Court to regard abortion as a “fundamental right” (a right on the level of freedom of speech), to apply the strictest standard of scrutiny when reviewing abortion-regulated laws, and thereby to nullify informed consent requirements (including those involving ultrasound), waiting periods, parental notification requirements, restrictions on taxpayer funding of abortion, and even record keeping requirements. The PRLDEF’s own “statement of interest” in three of these cases said that the PRLDEF  “opposes any efforts to overturn or in any way restrict the rights recognized in Roe v. Wade.” 

 During her recent confirmation hearings, Ms. Sotomayor suggested that she was only aware of this litigation activity in the most general terms, and had no responsibility for or awareness of the substance of the briefs.  Frankly, this testimony was not very believable.  Ms. Sotomayor was a Yale Law School graduate who, according to many accounts, is exceedingly – even excessively – detail oriented on the legal matters in which she is involved.  More believable is what the New York Times reported on May 29, 2009, after interviewing various parties who were directly involved in the PRLDEF litigation activity during this period:  “Ms. Sotomayor stood out, frequently meeting with the legal staff to review the status of cases, several former members said. . . . .The board monitored all litigation undertaken by the fund’s lawyers, and a number of those lawyers said Ms. Sotomayor was an involved and ardent supporter of their various legal efforts during her time with the group.”

 If confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Ms. Sotomayor will no longer be constrained by the precedents of that Court, including the precedents in which the Court upheld laws requiring notification of a parent before performing an abortion on a minor, requiring a pre-abortion waiting period, barring public funding of abortion, and – by a single vote, in 2007 – banning partial-birth abortion.  Nor, it appears, will she feel greatly constrained by the text and history of the Constitution, in which Roe v. Wade and its progeny find no support. 

 Because the available evidence strongly suggests that once on the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor will seek to nullify abortion-related laws adopted through the normal legislative processes of our democracy, consistent with the extreme legal theories with which she was associated before being appointed to the federal bench, National Right to Life urges all senators to vote against her confirmation to the Supreme Court.

Respectfully,

David N. O’Steen, Ph. D.
Executive Director 

Douglas Johnson
Legislative Director

cc:  Members of the United States Senate

NoDak Heartbeat Law Challenged

For immediate release: Thursday, July 23, 2009

For more information:
Derrick Jones,  (202) 626-8825                                                                                                     mediarelations@nrlc.org 

NRLC RESPONDS TO CHALLENGE OF NORTH DAKOTA HEARTBEAT LAW

 National Right to Life today responded to news that The Center for Reproductive Rights, on behalf of Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, North Dakota, is asking for a temporary injunction against the new life-affirming heartbeat law in North Dakota. The law, which was passed this spring, requires that a woman seeking an abortion be offered the opportunity to see an ultrasound of her unborn child and hear the fetal heartbeat, which can begin as early as eighteen days after fertilization. 

 “It’s unclear why a clinic, which claims to care about women, would be afraid to offer their patients all the vital and relevant information before performing a life-changing and intrusive medical procedure,” said Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., State Legislation Director for the National Right to Life Committee. “Diagnostic ultrasounds and listening to the fetal heartbeat provides mothers accurate information about the development of their unborn child.  Why is the abortion industry afraid of these tools?”

 The North Dakota ultrasound law not only provides the mother the opportunity to see a visual image of her child, but also allows her to hear her baby’s heartbeat, joining six other states with similar provisions. The bill was designed to offer the mother the most information while placing the entirety of the burden upon the abortionist.

 The law was passed by overwhelming margins in both the North Dakota House of Representatives (77-9) and the Senate (44-1).

 “We want women to be informed, and receive all possible information available –  much of which has historically been omitted by those in the abortion industry,” Balch said.  “It is shameful in our society that women cannot rely on abortionists to voluntarily provide them with information that would help them make the best decision for themselves and their unborn children”

 NRLC’s Mary Spaulding Balch is available for interviews regarding the North Dakota heartbeat law and the growing trend to enact similar laws in other states.

 The National Right to Life Committee, the nation’s largest pro-life group is a federation of affiliates in all 50 states and 3,000 local chapters nationwide. 

 # # #

Health Care Without Rationing

Last Sunday, Princeton’s own Peter Singer wrote a 5,000-word piece for the New York Times Magazine advocating directly for rationing of life-saving medical treatment.  Below is the response from NRLC’s medical ethics director, Burke Balch, J.D.

July 23, 2009

 To:                  Journalists & Interested Parties

 From:             Burke Balch, J.D., Director of NRLC Powell Center for Medical Ethics

Re:                  Health Care Without Rationing 

In a 5,000 word missive in the New York Times Magazine July 19, 2009, Princeton University Bioethics Professor Peter Singer openly advocated what many have feared – that under health care “reform,” lifesaving medical treatment be rationed so as to deny it to those deemed to have too poor a “quality of life.”  

He makes it clear that society should be more willing to withhold treatment from those who are old and those with disabilities.  “The death of a teenager is a greater tragedy than the death of an 85-year-old, and this should be reflected in our priorities,” he writes.  “[S]aving one teenager is equivalent to saving 14 85-year-olds.”  Similarly, “If most would . . .choose 6 years of nondisabled life over 10 with quadriplegia, but have difficulty deciding between 5 years of nondisabled life over 10 with quadriplegia, then they are, in effect, assessing life with quadriplegia as half as good as nondisabled life.”

 The premise of Singer’s article is the conventional wisdom that America cannot afford increasing health care costs.  But, as documented on the National Right to Life Committee website at http://www.nrlc.org/medethics/AmericaCanAfford.html, we as a society are spending more on health care because we CAN – because productivity increases over time have reduced the resources we need for food, clothing and shelter, freeing up more of our budgets to go toward saving our lives and improving our health. 

 A webinar presentation is available at: nrlcomm.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/hcrwebinar/ that provides a thorough explanation of how we can afford and assure health care for all without rationing.

 NRLC’s Balch is available for comment on the Singer piece as well as why the United States can afford health care without the need for rationing.  To arrange an interview, contact the NRLC Communications Department.

What can YOU do to help stop “the biggest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade”?

On Thursday July 23, a number of pro-life group, including National Right to Life, will host a webcast at StoptheAbortionMandate.com.  National Right to Life’s own legislative director, Douglas Johnson, will be on hand to offer his perspective from the front lines of this battle now being waged.

The current healthcare “reform” proposals being pushed by President Obama and his pro-abortion allies would result in federally funded abortion coverage , federally mandated recruitment of abortionists by local health networks, and nullification of many protective pro-life laws on the state level. All in all, they would also result in federal funding of abortion on a massive scale. 

Planned Parenthood and the billion-dollar abortion industry are using healthcare to smuggle in the cornerstones of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) into law. And, as of this week, they’re worried it won’t work! The action alert on the home page of Planned Parenthood’s web site reads: “URGENT — Anti-choice groups are trying to hijack health care reform!”

The abortion group’s president, Cecile Richards, sent out an urgent e-mail to abortion advocates stating: “we are in the fight of our lives… during the past week, anti-choice groups have turned out in droves to stop progress on health care reform in the name of ideology.”

The pro-life movement is gaining ground right now, and taking action this week could be a decisive tipping point for America!

That’s why it’s critically important that you do three things:

1)      Sign up for Thursday night’s webcast: www.StopTheAbortionMandate.com

2)      Visit the Legislative Action Center at www.nrlactioncenter.com This ready-to-go site will allow you to contact your representatives and tell them you want to keep abortion out of healthcare!

3)      Email the Legislative Action Center to every pro-lifer you know!

Together we can Stop the Abortion Agenda!

Video on Souder Anti-Mandate Amendment

This is a three-minute video of key Democrats on the House Education and Labor Committee opposing pro-life Congressman Mark Souder’s NRLC-backed amendment to remove abortion mandates from H.R. 3200, the Obama-backed health care bill.  Hear Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ) acknowledge that the bill will cover abortion like any other “surgery,” and hear Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Ca.) compare covering abortions to covering tonsillectomies. The committee rejected the pro-life amendment, 19-28.

Action Needed to Stop the Abortion Agenda as Health Care Debate Heats Up

President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi continue to push hard for congressional votes on sweeping health care restructuring legislation before the congressional recess begins in early August.  Today’s edition of the New York Times (July 20, 2009) contains a very important article titled “Health Bill Might Direct Tax Money to Abortion, by Robert Pear and Adam Liptak, here.  The story reports on the July 19 statement by White House Budget Director Peter R. Orszag that he was “not prepared to say” that the pending health care bills will not pay for abortion. 

The article goes on to quote NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson as saying the legislation “would result in the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade.”  The article quotes directly from an NRLC analysis of the House bill that the White House is backing.  The analysis is posted here.

“Abortion policy is emerging as a major issue on health care restructuring legislation, as the public is awakening to the Obama Administration’s attempt to smuggle into law the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade,“ said NRLC’s Johnson.  “These bills, which President Obama is pushing hard, would result in federally mandated coverage of abortion by nearly all health plans, federally mandated recruitment of abortionists by local health networks, and nullification of many state abortion laws.  They would also result in federal funding of abortion on a massive scale.  The pro-life movement needs to go to Condition Red on these bills, because they pose a mortal threat to the unborn and they are on a fast track to enactment.”

Take action today and tell your representatives that you want abortion explicitly excluded from healthcare reform proposals. By clicking here you will access an up-to-date report on the legislative situation on this critical legislation and be able to contact your representatives directly. As Congressman Chris Smith has said regarding the stealth abortion agenda, “This is the big one!”

Release: NRLC: Obama-Backed Health Care Bills Threaten Biggest Expansion of Abortion Since Roe

For immediate release:            Monday, July 20, 2009                        

For more information:
Federal Legislation Department, (202) 626-8820, legfederal@aol.com
Communications Department, (202) 626-8825 mediarelations@nrlc.org  

 OBAMA-BACKED HEALTH CARE BILLS THREATEN BIGGEST EXPANSION OF ABORTION SINCE ROE V. WADE, SAYS NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE

“Abortion policy is emerging as a major issue on health care restructuring legislation, as the public is awakening to the Obama Administration’s attempt to smuggle into law the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade.”
-Douglas Johnson, National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) Legislative Director

 WASHINGTON (July 20, 2009) –  A report in today’s New York Times (“Health Bill Might Direct Tax Money to Abortion,” by Robert Pear and Adam Liptak) puts a spotlight on the Obama Administration’s attempts to secure sweeping abortion coverage mandates and abortion subsidies in the health care bills currently under consideration in the Congress.

Referring to Senator Kennedy’s unnumbered bill, which was approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee on July 15, and to the House Democratic Leadership’s “tri-committee” bill (H.R. 3200), Johnson said, “These bills would result in federally mandated coverage of abortion by nearly all health plans, federally mandated recruitment of abortionists by local health networks, and nullification of many state abortion laws.  They would also result in federal subsidies for abortion on a massive scale.”

An NRLC analysis of H.R. 3200 explains in detail why general provisions such as those contained in the two bills will invariably be construed, by administrators and by the federal courts, to require coverage of elective abortion, unless Congress explicitly excludes abortion. 

The NRLC analysis also explains why the “Hyde Amendment,” a year-to-year patch on the federal Health and Human Services appropriations bill, would not prevent massive federal subsidies for elective abortions under H.R. 3200 or the Kennedy bill.

The NRLC analysis and other key documents on the issue are posted on the NRLC website at http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/Index.html

Some journalists have written casually that the bills “do not mention” abortion.  Johnson said, “The bills don’t mention cardiac bypass operations or cataract extractions, either, but those procedures will be mandated as essential services, and so will elective abortion, unless Congress explicitly excludes abortion from the bills.”

Leaders of major pro-abortion advocacy groups have made many public statements in recent months recognizing that the bills, as currently drafted, will result in vast expansions of “access” to elective abortion. 

For example, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), the nation’s largest abortion provider, told National Public Radio that her organization saw the legislation as a “platform” to extend “access” to abortion to “all women.”  The president of NARAL said, “I am very optimistic about reproductive health care being part of this entire package.”  The president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice wrote, “Let there be no mistake, basic healthcare includes abortion services.”
NRLC-backed amendments to exclude elective abortion from the scope of federal “essential benefits” mandates, and to prevent federal funding of elective abortions, have already been rejected by three congressional committees (Senate HELP, House Ways and Means, and House Education and Labor).  Some Democrats joined Republicans on the panels in supporting the amendments, but a sufficient number of Democrats opposed the amendments to defeat them. 

This week, Reps. Joseph Pitts (R-Pa.) and Bart Stupak (D-Mi.) will offer similar amendments during mark up sessions in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Twenty House Democrats have written to Speaker Pelosi to say that they cannot support a bill unless it “explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan.”

Members of the Senate Finance Committee are negotiating behind closed doors to craft an alternative health care bill, and abortion policy is also an issue in those discussions.  According to a July 14 report on www.newsweek.com, a spokesperson for the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), said that Grassley “is opposed to mandating abortion coverage in health care legislation.”

Today’s New York Times piece quotes Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services, as saying as recently as April, “Most private plans do not cover abortion services except in limited instances, but do cover family planning.  And Congress has limited the Federal Employee Health Benefit plan to covering abortion services only in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger.”    

NRLC’s Johnson and Senior Legislative Counsel Susan T. Muskett are available for interviews regarding the abortion mandates and abortion subsidies in the pending health care bills.

The National Right to Life Committee is the nation’s largest pro-life group is a federation of affiliates in all 50 states and over 3,000 local chapters nationwide.  National Right to Life works through legislation and education to protect those threatened by abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and assisted suicide.

# # #

NYTimes: Health Bill Might Direct Tax Money to Abortion

The article below appears in the New York Times for Monday, July 20, 2009.  The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) analysis of the Democratic “health care reform” bill moving in the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R. 3200), mentioned in the article, is posted here.  For an up-to-date report on the legislative situation, with action items, click here.  For further information, call 202-626-8820.  Please forward this update to any appropriate lists.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/health/policy/20abortion.html?_r=1

 New York Times

 July 20, 2009

Health Bill Might Direct Tax Money to Abortion

By ROBERT PEAR and ADAM LIPTAK

WASHINGTON — An Obama administration official refused Sunday to rule out the possibility that federal tax money might be used to pay for abortions under proposed health care legislation.

Peter R. Orszag, the White House budget director, asked whether he was prepared to say that “no taxpayer money will go to pay for abortions,” answered: “I am not prepared to say explicitly that right now. It’s obviously a controversial issue, and it’s one of the questions that is playing out in this debate.”

Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, who along with Mr. Orszag was asked about the issue on “Fox News Sunday,” said it had the potential to complicate the legislative battle over health care. “I would hate to see the health care debate go down over that issue,” Mr. Gregg said.

Abortion has been simmering behind the scenes as an issue in legislation to guarantee access to health insurance for all Americans. The debate affects not only the public health insurance plan that Democrats want to create, but also private insurers, who would receive tens of billions of dollars of federal subsidies to cover people with low and moderate incomes.

Under the House bill, for example, most insurers would have to provide an “essential benefits package” specified by the health and human services secretary, who would receive recommendations from a federal advisory committee. Opponents of abortion want Congress to prohibit inclusion of abortion in that benefits package, while advocates of abortion rights say the package should be left to medical professionals to determine.

In an analysis of the House bill, the National Right to Life Committee said that ordinary principles of administrative law could allow the Obama administration to determine what would be included in the benefits package. “There is no doubt,” the group said, “that coverage of abortion will be mandated, unless Congress explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of federal authority to define ‘essential benefits.’ ”

Even if the health secretary did not require coverage of abortion, the group said, “federal courts would interpret the broadly worded mandatory categories of coverage to include abortion.”

Susan M. Pisano, a spokeswoman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, said that most insurance companies offered benefit packages that included abortion coverage but that many employers decided not to buy such packages.

Douglas D. Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, said the House bill, like one approved last week by the Senate health committee, “would result in the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade,” the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.

In the three House committees that approved comprehensive health care bills last week, Republicans tried unsuccessfully to restrict coverage of abortion.

Since 1976, Congress has imposed sweeping restrictions on the use of federal money for abortions. The Hyde Amendment, for instance, prohibits the Medicaid program from spending federal money on most abortions.

But opponents of abortion said the proposed federal subsidies to be provided for coverage of the uninsured would not be subject to these restrictions.

Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, was asked about the issue in April when her nomination was being considered by the Senate Finance Committee.

“Most private plans do not cover abortion services except in limited instances, but do cover family planning,” Ms. Sebelius said. “And Congress has limited the Federal Employee Health Benefit plan to covering abortion services only in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger.”