Sometimes You Need to Read Between the Lines,
Sometimes It's Right There in Black and White
Part One of Three

Editor's note. Part Two is reprinted from the blog of the invaluable Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics-- http://powellcenterformedicalethics.blogspot.com. Part Three discusses another amazing use of adult stem cells.

Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.  If you'd like, follow me at www.twitter.com/daveha.

By Dave Andrusko

Okay, we're all adults here so it won't shock you when I say that the elastic rhetoric used by proponents of health care "reform" has long since pasted the point of merely stretching the truth. It is now out and out deceit.

Part One of TN&V for Monday briefly looks inside of what is a massive health-care restructuring for those components that promote abortion and those that pose the threat of rationing.

Part Two reprints an excellent post from NRLC's invaluable blog,
http://powellcenterformedicalethics.blogspot.com. For our purposes here, the first paragraph is most critical.

"Central to the Health Care Restructuring bills is the concept that cost cutting measures will be sufficient to make up for financing shortfalls," the blog notes. "There have been several recent studies showing how advance directives and end of life conversations generally yield cost savings."

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs continues to misrepresent the status of abortion in health care "reform"

The blog discusses the implications of two studies that appeared last week in the New England Journal of Medicine. These studies "show how medical conclusions based on the perceived quality of life of certain groups or of older people can pose risks in the areas of Advance Care Planning and 'comparative effectiveness' research." By all means read Part Two and its link back to a previous entry on "Euthanasia in Health Care? Advanced Care Planning Provisions Must Not Pressure Patients to Reject Life-Saving Care."

Then there is the story by TIME magazine's Amy Sullivan. I will be addressing only one component, but suffice it to say that overall she is grossly unfair in her attack on the role of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in the debate over health care "reform."

I want to highlight that even Sullivan acknowledges the truth of an argument NRLC has made for months which the pro-abortion Obama Administration and pro-abortion Democratic leadership in Congress--to its everlasting discredit--continue to deny:

"White House press secretary Robert Gibbs made matters worse by repeatedly answering questions about the Administration's position on the 'use of federal dollars for abortion' by insisting that federal law already prohibits the practice. Gibbs was referring to the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal dollars for abortions under Medicaid, with exceptions for rape and incest. But the law is only limited to Medicaid, and Gibbs' insistence that existing law prohibits direct federal funding of abortion continues to rankle many Catholics."

It also rankles anyone who believes that truth matters.

Please be sure to read Part Two and Part Three, which talks about another breakthrough using adult stem cells.

Please send your comment on any part to daveandrusko@gmail.com.