By Dave Andrusko

Part Two is an Urgent Action Alert from NRLC. Part Three is a thoughtful look at living with Alzheimer's. Part Four discusses how NRLC's annual convention is utilizing social networking. Please send comments on any or all parts to daveandrusko@gmail. And don't forget to check out our new resource: www.nationalrighttolifenews.org

Pro-life champion Rep. Bart Stupak

With a crucial, perhaps determinative vote on Obamacare likely only days away, not only is the action fast and furious, you can't tell the players without a score card. Let's go through a partial list of who is saying what, beginning with pro-life forces.

National Right to Life has sent out an Urgent Action Alert (www.capwiz.com/nrlc/callalert/index.tt?alertid=14772666&type=CO). It is reproduced as Part Two. The H.R. 3590 referenced in the alert is the Senate health bill, "a 2,407-page labyrinth strewn with the legislative equivalents of improvised explosive devices -- disguised provisions that will result in federal pro-abortion mandates and federal subsidies for abortion."

All of the information is important but none more than the following:

"The vote is too close to call. All House Republicans oppose H.R. 3590. The outcome will be determined by whether undecided Democrat lawmakers recognize sufficient opposition among their constituents to convince them to vote against the urgings of the President and their party leaders. Each House Democrat is ultimately accountable to his or her constituents -- not to the Speaker, who represents part of San Francisco. "

• The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Obama Administration continues to attempt to pretend that the Bishops can live with the Senate health care bill as it presently stands. Nothing could be further from the truth as was explained in a statement the Bishops asked parishes to post or read aloud yesterday. (See http://www.usccb.org/healthcare/UPDATED-bulletin-insert.pdf)

Pro-abortion Congressman Henry Waxman (d-Ca.)

In the first paragraph of the Bulletin Insert/Action Alert, we read, "Genuine health care reform is being blocked by those who insist on reversing widely supported policies against federal funding of abortion and plans which include abortion, not by those working simply to preserve these longstanding protections."

The Alert notes that the Senate bill, passed last December, "requires federal funds to help subsided and promote health care plans that cover elective abortions." It offers words of praise to be sent to House members for the pro-life House version. Catholics were asked to urge their senators "to support essential provisions against abortion funding, similar to those in the House bill."

The Bishops have also produced a four-page rebuttal of an analysis offered by Timothy Stolzfus Jost of the Washington and Lee University School of Law. Jost argues the opposite of the position taken by the Bishops and by NRLC--he contend "that there are no "significant differences" between the House and Senate bills on abortion.

This is a very important critique, and I would encourage you to take the time to read it. It can be found at http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/USCCBrebuttalToJostOnHR3590.pdf.

• Pro-life House Democrats. Bear in mind that there's been a slew of articles and opinion pieces the last few days which portray failure to pass health care "reform" as Obama's Waterloo. True or false, a ploy or an implicit threat to Democrats who refuse to buckle, there is no mistaking the heavy-hand of Obama and the pro-abortion Democratic leadership.

As explained in the NRLC Action Alert,

According to a March 12 report in National Review Online, Stupak said that pro-life Democrats in the House "are coming under 'enormous" political pressure" from the White House and Pelosi. "I am a definite 'no' vote," he says. "I didn't cave. The others are having both of their arms twisted, and we're all getting pounded by our traditional Democratic supporters, like unions."

These Democrats need to hear from you (www.capwiz.com/nrlc/callalert/index.tt?alertid=14772666&type=CO)
Other players include, of course, the pro-abortionists on the Hill and the Obama Administration. You can read a hundred different accounts, and they run from total confidence the Democrats can pass their abortion-laden Senate bill in the House to what is no doubt the truth: that the margin either way is razor-thin. All the more reason for you to contact your member of the House of Representatives to vote against the Senate bill.

And in case there was any confusion, last week Cong. Stupak described a conversation he had with pro-abortion Cong. Henry Waxman about the Senate health care bill. According to a transcription from WKQS's Mark & Walk morning show, Stupak said

"I gave him the language. He came back a little while later and said, 'But we want to pay for abortions.' I said, 'Mr. Chairman, that's -- we disagree. We don't do it now, we're not going to start.'

"'But we think we should,'" Stupak said Waxman told him.

"I said, 'Well, I'm sorry but the House has spoken. We had that debate. We won 240-190. You forced the vote, a vote we won fair and square and we're not gonna, this is what it is. If you want to move health care keep current law,'" Stupak continued.

Subsequently, in a phone interview with National Review Online Stupak characterized the position of Democratic leaders as follows:

"If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That's one of the arguments I've been hearing," Stupak says. "Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue -- come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we're talking about."

There are many others who are playing a role in shaping the last-week struggle. To name just one, over the weekend the Catholic Health Association reaffirmed its support for the Senate health care bill.

"The time is now for health care reform," Sister Carol Keehan, CHA President, insisted. She wrote, "On the moral issue of abortion, there is no disagreement"--that whether the bill "prevents federal funding of abortion" is but a "technical issue," and "we differ with Right to Life." (www.chausa.org/The_time_is_now_for_health_reform.aspx)

But as NRLC has pointed out repeatedly since last December, this is not a question of "on the one hand but on the other hand." The Senate bill was clearly rife with pro-abortion provisions three months ago. Since then, on further inspection NRLC found even more.

That is why NRLC said unequivocally, "Any House member who votes for the Senate health bill is casting a career-defining pro-abortion vote." (See http://nrlc.org/AHC/AbortionPolicyHCRBackgrounder.html.)

There is much more that can and will be said, especially about the legislative maneuvering that keeps being talked about to grease the skids for passage of the Senate bill in the House. It is not a pretty picture. Be sure to read Part Two and contact your Member of the House of Representatives.

Part Two
Part Three
Part Four