Stupak: Obama's health care plan is "unacceptable"

Representative Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) has released a statement in which he calls President Obama's health care legislation "unacceptable" on the issue of abortion.

"Unfortunately, the president's proposal encompasses the Senate language allowing public funding of abortion," Stupak wrote in a statement released Tuesday morning.

He was unequivocal in the next line, saying, "The Senate language is a significant departure from current law and is unacceptable."

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Prolife Music Video by Caitlin Jane

Below is a music video of the song "Unborn" by singer Caitlin Jane. The National Right to Life News recently profiled Jane.

Obama's new health care proposal would make Senate legislation more pro-abortion

Today, President Obama today proposed "a targeted set of changes to" the Senate-passed health reform bill. None of President Obama's proposed changes diminish any of the sweeping pro-abortion problems in the Senate bill and he actually proposes to increase the funds that would be available to directly subsidize abortion procedures (through Community Health Centers) and to subsidize private health insurance that covers abortion (through the premium-subsidy tax credits program).

If all of the President's proposed changes were made and without the addition of the prolife Stupak-Pitts amendment, the resulting legislation would allow direct federal funding of abortion on demand through Community Health Centers, would institute federal subsidies for private health plans that cover abortion on demand (including some federally administered plans) and would authorize federal mandates that would require even non-subsidized private plans to cover elective abortion.

The Senate bill, due to a last-minute amendment, provides $7 billion for the nation's 1,250 Community Health Centers, without any restriction whatever on the use of these federal funds to pay directly for abortion on demand. (These funds are entirely untouched by the "Hyde Amendment" that currently covers Medicaid.) Obama today proposed to increase that figure to $11 billion, but without adding a prohibition on the use of the funds for abortion. Two pro-abortion groups, the Reproductive Health Access Project and the Abortion Access Project, are already actively campaigning for Community Health Centers to perform elective abortions.

Any member of Congress who votes for the final legislation proposed by President Obama will be voting for direct federal funding of elective abortion through Community Health Centers and an array of other pro-abortion federal subsidies and mandates.

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Adult stem cells save the leg of a Michigan woman

On February 20, 2010, the Grand Rapids Press featured an adult stem cell success story on their front page. The story tells how Helen Thomas, an 80-year-old woman from Hastings, avoided having her leg amputated when her own stem cells were injected into her leg and caused new blood vessels to grow. Thomas suffered from peripheral arterial disease (PAD) which causes pain in the extremities and in severe cases can lead to amputation.

"It was a miracle," she said this week. "I'm walking, and I wouldn't be walking without the stem cells. I have my leg."

Therein lies the hope for millions of people.

Thomas suffered peripheral arterial disease, or PAD, which affects the lower limbs of 10 million Americans. Untreated, it can lead to strokes, amputations and death.

"They saved my life. I told them they saved my life," Thomas said.

She was part of the Ohio study conducted by Franz, Dr. Kaushal Shah and Dr. Thomas Hankins. Of 16 patients who underwent the procedure, 13 avoided major amputations, the researchers said.

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Failing never felt so good

The state of Michigan has once again been given a failing grade on its 2010 report card from NARAL (the National Abortion Rights Action League). Annually, NARAL releases a report entitled, “Who Decides” which analyzes state legislation and grades each of the 50 states based on how their laws restrict or don't restrict abortion. States with few or no prolife laws receive high grades while states with a large number prolife laws usually receive failing grades.

Right to Life of Michigan is proud to be given another "F" from NARAL because of our numerous lifesaving laws. These laws (including a ban on tax-funded abortions, regulations on abortion providers, as well as parental and informed consent laws) have helped decrease the number of abortions performed in Michigan by 47.4% since 1987.

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Olympian Five Months Pregnant

Kristie Moore, an alternate on Canada's Olympic curling team is five-months pregnant.

As with all curling teams, Team Canada features five members. Well, six, if you really want to get technical with it.

Alternate Kristie Moore, 30, is 5½ months pregnant, making her just the second athlete ever known to be with child during Olympic competition. Ninety years ago, Swedish figure skater Magda Julin won a gold medal at the Antwerp Games while in her first trimester.

Though she is showing, Moore says that her pregnancy has not affected her ability to deliver rocks ... yet. "[In] the eighth month or so, that might be an issue," she said.

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Tebow Super Bowl ad surprised many

What are your thoughts?

CBS aired a commercial featuring prolife college football star Tim Tebow and his mother Pam during the Super Bowl on February 7. The prolife organization Focus on the Family sponsored the ad, the 30-second ad's theme was "Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life." Pam Tebow contracted amoebic dysentery while pregnant and doctors advised her to have an abortion because the treatment could result in harm to the unborn Tim. Several pro-abortion organizations including the National Organization for Women publicly denounced the ad before it aired. NOW President Terry O'Neill called the planned ad "extraordinarily offensive and demeaning."

If you watched the Super Bowl, let us know what you think of the Tebow ad. E-mail us at info@rtl.org.

Alabama Planned Parenthood on Probation for Failing to Report Potential Sexual Abuse

Health officials in Alabama have place a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Birmingham on probation after an inspection of the facility revealed multiple problems. Besides failing to adequately verify parental consent, Planned Parenthood staff also didn’t report a potential case of sexual abuse.

In that potential abuse case, a 13-year-old girl reported that she became sexually active at 12 and came in for two abortions within four months. She was not asked by staff about potential abuse, and her case was not reported to authorities.

"If she was being abused, you give her a chance to be rescued from that situation," said Rick Harris, director of health provider standards for the Alabama Department of Public Health.

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Michigan Abortionist Facing More Trouble

Michigan abortionist Alberto Hodari continues to face troubles as LifeNews.com reports one of his abortion clinics is at least temporarily shut down and he faces another lawsuit for negligence and incompetence.

The lawsuit alleges that Hodari performed an abortion on a woman with an ectopic pregnancy (a pregnancy where the child implants outside the uterus). Hodari failed to diagnose the ectopic pregnancy. The woman later had her fallopian tube removed at a hospital.

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Researchers discover “vegetative” patients with brain activity

Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine used brain scans to show that some patients who were diagnosed as being in a vegetative state were actually aware.

In a study certain to rekindle debate over life-sustaining care for those with grievous brain injuries, researchers report that five patients thought to be in a persistent vegetative state showed brain activity indicating awareness, intent and, in at least one case, a wish to communicate.

Of 54 unresponsive patients whose brains were scanned at medical centers in England and Belgium, those five appeared able, when prompted by researchers, to imagine themselves playing tennis, and four of them demonstrated the ability to imagine themselves walking through the rooms of their homes.

One of those patients -- a 22-year-old man who had been unresponsive for five years after an automobile crash -- went on to respond to a series of simple questions with brain activity that clearly indicated yes or no answers, researchers said.

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Pro-choice columnist rips pro-abortion organizations for attacking prolife Super Bowl ad

Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins calls herself "pro-choice" but doesn't think much of pro-abortion organizations, including the National Organization for Women, who are opposed to CBS airing an advertisement featuring the prolife story of Heisman winning quarterback Tim Tebow. She writes,

Tebow's 30-second ad hasn't even run yet, but it already has provoked "The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us" to reveal something important about themselves: They aren't actually "pro-choice" so much as they are pro-abortion....

Tebow's ad, by the way, never mentions abortion; like the player himself, it's apparently soft-spoken. It simply has the theme "Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life." This is what NOW has labeled "extraordinarily offensive and demeaning." But if there is any demeaning here, it's coming from NOW, via the suggestion that these aren't real questions, and that we as a Super Bowl audience are too stupid or too disinterested to handle them on game day.

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