By Dave Andrusko

Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com

The operative and most essential three words in the alert sent out by National Right to Life is "Time is Short!" If you want your voice heard you need to call your two senators immediately. (To read the complete alert and to learn how to contact your senators, go to http://nrlactioncenter.com.)

Pro-life senators Ben Nelson (D-Ne.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) will file (or perhaps already will have filed by the time you read this) an amendment to Majority Leader Harry Reid's "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." NRLC strongly opposes Reid's bill (H.R. 3590) and strongly supports the Nelson-Hatch Amendment.

President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

In this space and elsewhere you've read a lot about the pro-life Stupak-Pitts amendment which was added to the House of Representatives version of health care restructuring. The Nelson-Hatch Amendment would make the same critical policy changes to the Reid bill that were accomplished in the House.

That is, the effect of the Nelson-Hatch Amendment would (1) prevent the proposed new government health insurance program -- the "public option" -- from paying for abortions, and (2) also prevent federal funds from being used to subsidize the purchase of private health plans that pay for elective abortion.

The alert itself is very complete, so just one additional comment. There is widespread public opposition to using federal funds to subsidize abortions, thus the need for pro-abortion congressional leaders and pro-abortion President Barack Obama to deny that this is precisely what they are doing.

What their insincere assurances cannot hide is that under the bill the federal Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to require coverage of any and all abortions throughout the public option program. As NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson has said, "This would be federal government funding of abortion, no matter how hard they try to disguise it." (And they ARE trying hard.)

Again, please go to http://nrlactioncenter.com so that you can voice your support for the Nelson-Hatch Amendment to Reid's "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (H.R. 3590).