Why Rep. Stupak is Wrong
Part One of Three
By Dave Andrusko
Part Two documents the
results of a Washington Post
poll which reveals how unpopular
ObamaCare really is.
Part Three is the
encouraging news about the 11%
drop in abortions in Kansas.
Please send your comments on any
or all three parts to
daveandrusko@gmail.com.
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Congressman Bart
Stupak (D-Mi.) |
When, after a grueling race, a
contestant fails to make it over
the finish line, he has several
options. One is to expect thanks
for trying. Another is to
declare that, contrary to what
you just saw with your own eyes,
he not only crossed the finish
line but won!
The latter has been the response
of Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mi.) to
organizations such as National
Right to Life who have
respectfully but unambiguously
criticized Mr. Stupak for
accepting a meaningless
executive order from the most
pro-abortion President since Roe
v. Wade was handed down. I'm not
going to quote Mr. Stupak's more
intemperate remarks, because I
strongly suspect that at some
point he may regret them.
Because of the Obama executive
order, it is Rep. Stupak's
position that the Senate measure
the House voted in favor of (and
which President Obama signed
into law) fits the pro-life
bill. That simply is false.
"The order does not truly
correct any of the seven
objectionable pro-abortion
provisions described in NRLC's
March 19 letter to the House of
Representatives," as NRLC
pointed out a week ago Sunday.
The best blow-by-blow
explanation is to be found--as
always--at NRLC's website,
www.nrlc.org. In this case the
best place to start is
http://nrlc.org/AHC/Release032110.html.
Over the weekend columnist
Kathleen Parker, not one of us,
wrote a piece under the
headline, "Federally funded
abortions are in our future."
There are places where we
disagree with her analysis. For
example, there are grounds to
believe Community Health Centers
may already perform abortions.
But Parker's five-word summary
why CHCs in the future will for
sure perform abortions is
completely persuasive: "There's
nothing [in the new law] to stop
them."
"By statute, CHCs are required
to provide all 'required primary
health care services,' defined
to include 'health services
related to . . . obstetrics or
gynecology that are furnished by
physicians,'" she writes.
"Federal courts long have held
that when a statute requires
provision of health services
under such broad categories,
then the statute must be
construed to include abortion
unless it explicitly excludes
it. Voilą."
There's more. In defending his
actions, Rep. Stupak wrote an
op-ed that appeared Saturday in
the Washington Post. The bottom
line of his defense is, "I and
other pro-life Democrats struck
an agreement with President
Obama to issue an executive
order that would ensure all Hyde
Amendment protections would
apply to the health-care reform
bill."
Parker does a good job
explaining how Obama's executive
order may be much ado about
something, but is nothing ado
about stopping the funding of
abortion. "For one thing, the
Hyde Amendment is a rider that
must be lobbied and attached
each year to the annual
Labor/Health and Human Services
appropriations bill," she wrote.
"Under its terms, the amendment
applies only to those funds."
Moreover, "Rather than following
the usual course of funding
community health centers (CHCs)
through the Labor/HHS budget,
the health-care-reform measure
does an end run around Hyde by
directly appropriating billions
of dollars into a new CHC fund.
Because the Obama
administration's 'fix-it' bill
did not include the abortion-ban
language proposed by Rep. Bart
Stupak (D-Mich.), those billions
appropriated to CHCs simply are
not covered by Hyde."
Obama has unfailingly tried to
keep his commitment to his
pro-abortion allies, just as
Bush unfailingly kept his
commitments to pro-lifers. Skip
the opinions of those with an
involvement in the issue.
Why would anyone without a dog
in the hunt possibly believe
that Obama and his pro-abortion
Secretary of Health and Human
Services Kathleen Sebelius would
expend 15 second to assure that
federal money not pay for
abortions?
Please take the time to read
both Parts
Two
and
Three and visit
www.nationalrighttolifenews.org. |