Monday, August 24, 2009

FactCheck.org notes that President Obama isn’t telling the truth about abortion and health care reform

During a recent telephone call with supporters, President Obama claimed that current health care reform plans wouldn’t allow the government funding of abortion and that prolife groups who were educating the public about this issue were “fabricating.”

The web site FactCheck.org has reviewed the health care legislation and concludes that President Obama is the one who is fabricating information, noting that “(d)espite what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plans.”
Abortion foes quickly denounced Obama’s statement as untrue. The NRLC’s Johnson said "the bill backed by the White House (H.R. 3200) explicitly authorizes the government plan to cover all elective abortions." And our analysis shows that Johnson’s statement is correct. Though we of course take no position on whether the legislation should allow or not allow coverage for abortions, the House bill does just that.

FactCheck.org then concludes their report by saying,
“As for the House bill as it stands now, it’s a matter of fact that it would allow both a "public plan" and newly subsidized private plans to cover all abortions.”


FULL STORY

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Human embryonic stem cell trial delayed

The only clinical trial approved by the FDA using cells created from embryonic stem cells has now been put on hold by the FDA. The delay occurred before any patients were enrolled in the study. No patients have yet to be successfully treated with embryonic stem cells.
The halt was ordered after Geron shared data from dose escalation studies in animals with the Food and Drug Administration, the company said. The therapy is meant to restore movement to paralyzed people by injecting nerve cells made from embryonic stem cells to the site of the injury.

In January, the F.D.A. lifted a delay on the clinical trial from May 2008. The action on Tuesday was probably based on safety concerns that emerged from the new higher-dose data the company had submitted, said Joseph Pantginis, an analyst with the Merriman Curhan Ford Group in New York.

FULL STORY

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Abortion in Health Care Reform

National Right to Life Committee has recently posted a fact sheet which discusses how current health care reform bills in the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate would force taxpayers to pay for and subsidize abortions.

FULL STORY

Thursday, August 13, 2009

House and Senate to Vote After Labor Day on Health Bills That Will Greatly Expand and Fund Abortion

The U.S. House and U.S. Senate are expected to vote after Labor Day on "health care reform" bills that, in their current forms, could produce the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade.

Your help is needed today.

The bills are being pushed hard by President Barack Obama and by top Democratic congressional leaders. However, growing public concerns about the bills caused sufficient resistance among some factions of Democrats that the leadership was forced to abandon the original plan of having floor votes on the bills in July. The August recess provides an excellent opportunity for concerned citizens to contact their Washington lawmakers. Below are suggested action items, key messages and links to help you make a difference and save lives!

Action Items:

* Schedule an individual or small group meeting with your U.S. House Representative
* Attend a Town-Hall Meeting. Call the district office of your U.S. Senators and U.S. House Representative to find out when/if a meeting is scheduled
* Call your U.S. Senators and U.S. House Representative district offices to share your message to explicitly exclude abortion from any national health care plan
* FAX a message to the district offices of your U.S. Senators and U.S. House Representative
* Put an announcement in your church bulletin to encourage others to contact their U.S. House Representative and U.S. Senators
* Send out a message using FaceBook, Twitter, and other social networking with a link to www.rtl.org so others can be informed on abortion in proposed national health care legislation

Messages:

* No tax funding for abortion in any national health care program
* Abortion must be explicitly excluded from national health care
* Abortion is not health care

Some say abortion is not part of the national health care plan, however, it is important to note that many attempts were made in committee meetings to explicitly exclude abortion with amendments. Every amendment to explicitly exclude abortion from national health care was defeated in committee.

Key Links:

* Congressional Contact Information
* Suggestions for letters to the editor and on-line posts are available
* Sign On-Line Petition
* Print and distribute this Action Alert to let others know about national health care reform plans. Perfect for fairs and churches

Follow Right to Life of Michigan on FaceBook, MySpace or Twitter.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Abortions increase in Michigan

The Michigan Department of Community Health recently released Michigan’s 2008 abortion statistics. The statistics show that the number of abortions performed in Michigan rose 5.2% to a total of 25,970 induced abortions. While the information is disappointing because of the increase in the number of abortions performed in Michigan, the data is not surprising. Michigan has been hit hard economically which makes a decision for life more challenging for mothers experiencing an untimely pregnancy.

The increase in the number of abortions performed on residents of Wayne and Oakland county was dramatic , totaling more than the increase for the state as a whole. The number of abortions performed on black women also increased disproportionately. The percentage of abortions performed on black women was 45.4% (it was 41.9% in 2007) even though the American Community Survey estimates that only 14.1% of Michigan’s population is Black or African-American.

The death of one woman from abortion was recorded as an immediate complication.

A summary of the statistics along with links to other statistics is available online here.

House and Senate to Vote After Labor Day on Health Bills That Will Greatly Expand and Fund Abortion

The U.S. House and U.S. Senate are expected to vote after Labor Day on "health care reform" bills that, in their current forms, could produce the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade.

The bills are being pushed hard by President Obama and by top Democratic congressional leaders, including pro-abortion House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.). However, growing public concerns about the bills caused sufficient resistance among some factions of Democrats that the leadership was forced to abandon the original plan of having floor votes on the bills in July. The August recess provides an excellent opportunity for concerned citizens to express themselves to their senators and House members while the lawmakers are back home taking the pulse of public opinion.

No congressional Republican has yet endorsed the bills being pushed by the White House in either the House or the Senate. The Democrats, who hold about 60 percent of the seats in both houses of Congress, are divided, with some Democrats opposed, either because of the pro-abortion provisions or for other reasons, and many others undecided or uncertain.

In the U.S. Senate, the White House is backing a bill (as yet unnumbered) sponsored by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Ma.), which was approved on July 15 by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee on a 13-10 party line vote. The committee voted down all pro-life amendments, including an amendment offered by pro-life Senator Tom Coburn (R-Ok.) to prevent health care providers from being penalized for refusing to participate in providing abortions.

"The Kennedy bill would result in the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade," said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson. "It would result in federally mandated coverage of abortion by nearly all health plans, federally mandated recruitment of abortionists by local health networks, and nullification of many state abortion laws. It would also result in federal funding of abortion on a massive scale."

In the U.S. House, the White House is behind H.R. 3200, which has been approved by three different committees. All three committees voted down amendments to prevent the bills from mandating coverage of abortions and to prevent federal subsidies for abortions, as only a few Democrats joined the minority Republican members in support of the amendments.

On the third panel, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the pro-abortion side narrowly won adoption of a "phony compromise" amendment offered by Rep. Lois Capps (D-Ca.) (who has a zero percent career prolife voting record) that would result in elective abortions being covered under the government-operated "public plan" the bill would create, and would allow federal subsidies to flow to private insurance plans that cover elective abortions. The pro-abortion members of the committee voted down an amendment offered by Reps. Bart Stupak (D-Mi.) and Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) to prohibit federal subsidies from going to plans that cover elective abortions.

"The adoption of the pro-abortion Capps Amendment, and the rejection of the prolife Stupak-Pitts amendment, underscores that H.R. 3200 would drastically change federal policy, channeling massive new federal subsidies to health plans that pay for abortion on demand, including a national plan that will be offered by the federal government," said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson. "This is Condition Red for the pro-life movement. Every pro-life American should communicate, loudly and clearly, his or her opposition to this Obama-backed bill, before it comes to the House floor in September."

ACTION ITEMS

Please take a few minutes to TELEPHONE the offices of your two U.S. senators, give your name and address, and tell the senators' staff persons that you wish to be recorded with the message "abortion and abortion funding must be explicitly excluded from any health care/insurance reform legislation." The offices of any U.S. senator can be reached through 202-224-3121. Also, please TELEPHONE the office of your U.S. House member, give your name and address, and inform the staff person that you wish to be recorded with the message "abortion and abortion funding must be explicitly excluded from any health care/insurance reform legislation." You can reach any U.S. House member's office through 202-225-3121. Town Hall type of meetings may be scheduled in your area. Watch your newspapers for dates and times. Attend these meetings and let your voice be heard with the message noted above.

Also, please send short letters to the "letters to the editor" features of your local newspapers, in order to alert your fellow prolife citizens to the sweeping pro-abortion mandates and pro-abortion subsidies that the Obama White House and the pro-abortion lobby are trying to smuggle into law through "health care reform."

Please share this information with two or three friends or family members and ask them to share it with others.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Efforts in committee to exclude abortion from health care fail

In an attempt to make certain that abortion was explicitly excluded from health care reform, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee including Michigan’s Bart Stupak put forward an amendment known as the Stupak-Pitts amendment. The Stupak-Pitts amendment would prevent the public health care option from funding abortion. On July 30, this amendment passed 31-27 but after a re-vote the amendment failed 30-29.

Efforts will now be made to insert amendments to exclude abortion from health care reform on the House floor after the August recess.

FULL STORY