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NRLC Testifies on Behalf
of the "Protect Life Act" Part One of Four By Dave Andrusko Good evening and thanks for being part of the discussion. Part Two updates us on abortionist Kermit Gosnell's day in court yesterday. Part Three talks about the 2012 political picture now that two more senators have announced their retirements. Part Four is our latest excerpt from the Grand Jury's enormously revealing investigation of Gosnell. Over at National Right to Life News Today (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org), there is an update on the remark public remarks of Don Berwick, as he avoids dealing with his controversy-laden past. We also celebrate the grassroots work of pro-lifers in South Carolina and Nebraska. In addition, Congressman Chris Smith celebrates the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act." To do the best job possible I need your feedback on both Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today. Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha.
National Right to Life Federal Legislative Director Douglas Johnson told a House Subcommittee Wednesday that the "Protect Life Act" (H.R. 358) will "correct the new abortion-expanding provisions" of ObamaCare. That law (formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) "contains multiple provisions that authorize subsidies for abortion, as well as provisions that could be employed for abortion-expanding administrative mandates." (See http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/ProtectLifeActDouglasJohnsonTestimony.pdf) The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPCA), Johnson said, "lacks effective bill-wide protective language such as the House of Representatives attached to its version of health care restructuring legislation" [the Stupak-Pitts Amendment] on November 7, 2009. "Some of these objectionable provision are entirely untouched by any limitations on abortion, whether contained in the PPCA itself or elsewhere, while other are subject only to limitations that are temporary, contingent, and/or ridden with loopholes." Johnson's testimony addressed one of three important pro-life measures that the House is considering: the Protect Life Act, the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" (H.R. 3), and the "Title 10 Abortion Providers Prohibition Act," which would cut off the taxpayer money that flows into Planned Parenthood through Title 10. Helen M. Alvaré, J. D. , an Associate Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law, analyzed the conscience protections in the Protect Life Act. "Freedom of religious and moral conscience is a universally recognized right and an intrinsic aspect of the history of the United States," Alvare said. "This has been acknowledged by the majority since the beginning of legalized abortion in our nation. Opponents of conscience protection where abortion is concerned, occupy a very marginal position on this matter." Testifying Tuesday on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Richard Doerflinger argued that the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" (H.R. 3) "is a well-crafted and reasonable measure to maintain longstanding and widely supported policies against active government promotion of abortion. It consistently applies to all branches of the federal government the principle that government can encourage childbirth over abortion through its funding power, and that it should not coerce anyone's involvement in abortion." Doerflinger, the Associate Director of the USCCB's Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, added, "H.R. 3 will write into permanent law a policy on which there has been strong popular and congressional agreement for over 35 years: The federal government should not use tax dollars to support or promote elective abortion." In his testimony, Johnson explained that without explicit congressional prohibitions, federal statutes authorizing funding of general health services and health coverage for decades have been construed to authorize coverage of abortion, essentially without restriction. Efforts to include such an explicit prohibition in the PPCA were initially successful in the House, but late lost. Unless the PPCA is repealed, or amended by the Protect Life Act, or the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act is enacted, abortion subsidies will be authorized, "implicitly and even explicitly," Johnson said. He pointed to a plethora of polling data that demonstrates conclusively that a large majority of Americans are opposed to allowing public funds to pay for abortion through health care. Johnson also noted that during the time he was a candidate, President Obama "went to great lengths to emphasize his unblemished record of opposition to limitations on abortion, including opposition to parental notification laws, bans on partial-birth abortion, and support for repeal of the Hyde Amendment." "After securing the nomination, however, he adopted a rhetorical line of advocating governmental policies to reduce the number of abortions," Johnson said. At a minimum "well over one million Americans are walking around today because of the Hyde Amendment," Johnson said, a result that a 2007 monograph for the Guttmacher Institute described as "tragic." "If the principles of the Hyde Amendment are applied to the PPACA or to whatever legislation may ultimately replace PPACA, then the lifesaving effects that we have already seen will be multiplied, and this is a goal that National Right to Life regards as the furthest thing from a tragedy." |
