Call on Obama administration to be transparent about abortion coverage

Several prolife groups are hosting a #betransparent Tweetfest tomorrow on Twitter to call attention to the fact that Obama Administration rules prevent people from knowing if the insurance plan they're about to sign up for through the health exchange covers abortion or not (if they can even sign up in the first place). Every plan that covers abortion forces an individual to pay separate money for an abortion surcharge.

Being forced to pay for abortion because of the secrecy of coverage is anti-choice., and, really, it’s also un-American. A new social media event seeks to highlight this and bring about change.

“Tell @Sebelius to #BeTransparent. Why won’t #Obamacare tell us which plans include #abortion?” says the sample tweet that is one of many for the Oct. 30 event, TweetFest: Tell Sebelius to #BeTransparent about Abortion Coverage in Obamacare, which takes place at a computer, tablet or smartphone nearest to you between 9 a.m. and noon next Wednesday.

FULL STORY

Changes coming to state agency which polices doctors after abortionist not investigated

WOODTV 8 has video from a recent state Senate subcommittee hearing regarding proposed legislation to prevent conflicts of interests when complaints are filed against doctors.  Senator Tonya Schuitmaker and Senator Rick Jones put the legislation together after it was revealed that abortionist Robert Alexander wasn't investigated after a complaint was filed against him.

The hearing was prompted by Target 8's investigation into Dr. Robert Alexander, who ran an abortion clinic in Muskegon until the city shut it down late last year over unsafe and unsanitary conditions.

"Blood on the floors, blood on the walls, rusty equipment, like a scene from a horror movie," Sen. Rick Jones (R-Grand Ledge) told the subcommittee.

Alexander had faced complaints in 2009 of botched abortions at his clinic that allegedly put women's lives at risk.

"It's not just that this was an abortion clinic," Jones said. "It could have been plastic surgery."

Target 8 revealed that the chairman of the state Board of Medicine -- Dr. George Shade -- had single-handedly blocked an investigation into the complaints.

"He had numerous allegations against him made by another doctor, but when these went up to the board, just one doctor could tear up the complaints," Jones said. "It didn't get a review of the full board."

FULL STORY

Some Obamacare exchanges count the unborn as members of your family

One of the frequent double standards used by those who favor legal abortion is how the unborn child is seen and described.  If the child is wanted, terms like "baby" and "unborn child" are used.  When the child is unwanted or has been aborted, other terms like "clumps of cells" or "product of conception" are put forth to dehumanize the child. 

A prolife blogger searching for health insurance found some Obamacare exchanges feature this same double standard.  During the passage of Obamacare, President Obama opposed efforts to eliminate the subsidizing of abortion in Obamacare but some Obamacare plans are now counting the unborn as people.

While perusing the health care exchange in Connecticut, Family Institute of Connecticut Action blogger Simcha Reuven noticed that Connecticut's Obamacare counts unborn children as members of your household. 

There is one other question on this page listed under “Optional Information”: “For detailed pricing, please provide the optional information below. Is the applicant pregnant?” Next to the question mark after “pregnant” is a black background question mark tool tip. Just wondering what this was about, I placed my mouse over the tool tip and lo-and-behold, the following message appeared:

Select ‘Yes’ for any female who is expecting a baby. Unborn children are counted as members of her household, so this information helps determine if she is eligible for help with health care costs. Medicaid also has rules to help pregnant women.

Read that again. Unborn children—not “fetuses,” “uterine contents,” “products of pregnancy,” “clump of cells,” “blob of tissue,” or any of the other euphemisms frequently used by those who profess to be pro-choice on abortion. Nor is Access Health CT the only Obamacare exchange that uses the term “unborn children.” Massachusetts pioneered the system of a health care exchange, guaranteed issue, an individual mandate, and subsidies for low and moderate income people that became the model for Obamacare. The Massachusetts Health Connector website also refers to “unborn child(ren)”:

 How many people are in your family? (Include unborn child(ren) if someone is pregnant.)

Moreover, a woman can claim the extra family member as soon as she has a confirmed pregnancy—no waiting for a trimester or two. So for the purpose of determining family size for the health care exchanges, Obamacare declares unborn children, even at the earliest stages of life, to be full-fledged persons, so that pregnant women and their families can qualify for increased subsidies and cost-sharing on the exchanges.

FULL STORY

Representative LaFontaine explains importance of opting out of abortion coverage

Rep. LaFontaine (Mich. Leg.)

In the Detroit News, State Representative Andrea LaFontaine has an editorial discussing Right to Life of Michigan's and the state legislature's efforts to prevent elective abortion coverage from being allowed in insurance plans subsidized by tax dollars.  More than 315,000 signatures of registered Michigan voters were recently submitted to the Michigan Board of Canvassers to allow the state legislature another chance to pass this important legislation. 

Despite the valiant attempts by Republican lawmakers to stop its implementation, including challenges at the United States Supreme Court, the Affordable Care Act is now the law of the land. In preparation for the Affordable Care Act invading our personal lives and our wallets, last year the state Legislature approved a bill that would disallow health insurance companies that participate in the taxpayer funded exchange from offering elective abortion coverage as part of their subsidized plans.

Unfortunately, Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed the bill that contained this language. To remedy this, a citizen-led initiative began and more than 315,000 Michiganians from all 83 of our counties signed a petition in support of the abortion insurance opt-out, giving the Legislature another opportunity to ensure taxpayers are not on the hook for elective abortions.

More than half of the other states in the U.S. have already either restricted abortion coverage in the plans that will be offered through the exchange or removed standard abortion coverage from private insurance plans. Hard-working taxpayers are sending a strong message to their legislators that while they may be unable to resist paying for Affordable Care Act in its entirety, they absolutely will not fund the portion that subsidizes health plans that provide elective abortion coverage.

FULL EDITORIAL 

LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS LEGISLATION AT MICHIGAN'S VOICE

Sanctity of Human Life Sunday 2014 Bulletin Inserts now available

Right to Life of Michigan is now offering church bulletin inserts for Sanctity of Human Life Sunday (SOHLS) 2014.

These 5.5" x 8.5" full color glossy bulletin inserts featuring Genesis 1:27 and a prolife prayer are perfect for Sanctity of Human Life Sunday church services, prolife gatherings and events.

Our SOHLS website also features downloadable presentations, ideas for SOHLS activities, a listing of bus trips going to the 2014 March for Life from Michigan and resources for prolife leaders.


LEARN MORE AND ORDER SOHLS INSERTS

Respect Life Month resolution passes in Livingston County

Congratulations to Right to Life - Livingston County for their efforts to have a respect life resolution passed by the Livingston County Board of Commissioners. A resolution acknowledging October as Respect Life Month passed unanimously on Monday, October 21!

Auburn's homecoming queen shares her prolife message

On October 12th, Molly Ann Dutton was named Auburn University's 100th homecoming queen.  In her platform video (which can be seen below) she shares her story of being conceived in rape and her birthmother's decision to choose life for her despite her birth mother's husband threatening divorce if she didn't have an abortion. 

FULL STORY

Maryland man walks after adult stem cell treatment

One Maryland resident left paralyzed from the chest down by transverse myelitis has been able to walk again years after a treatment using ethical adult stem cells taken from his own bone marrow.

In a little more than a year Shawn was paralyzed from the chest down. Five separate doctors told Shawn he'd never walk again. His body began failing him on many levels. About 10 years ago he suffered a lupus stroke and doctors told his family he would die that night. He survived, but was left numb to life, both physically and emotionally.

"With autoimmune, you have fatigue. Excruciating, crushing fatigue," Shawn described.

Doctor after doctor admitted defeat in treating him, until he allowed himself to become an experiment of sorts at the National Institute of Health in Maryland. Here recent research has discovered a new level of blank cells known as stem cells in the human body. They are taken out bone marrow and put it back into the diseased areas of the body to regrow and replace the tainted cells......

For Shawn his stem cell treatment was six years ago. Today he's able to walk up to a half mile on the treadmill - a huge achievement considering just a few years ago the only thing he could do was wiggle his big toe a quarter of an inch.

FULL STORY

Michigan Radio highlights RLM's mastery of petition drive

RLM President Barb Listing signs paperwork to submit petitions

A recent segment on Michigan Radio highlighted the petition drive process and Right to Life of Michigan's experience and success using the citizen-initiated process to pass prolife laws.

This is the fourth time Right to Life has responded to a governor’s veto with a petition drive. Michigan’s Medicaid abortion ban (1987), the parental consent abortion law (1990), and the law that banned the dilation-and-extraction procedure (2011) were all enacted as citizen-initiated laws.  

Right to Life can pull this off because its signature-gathering operation is run with assembly line precision. It is one of the very few organizations that can, on its own, as an entirely volunteer operation, gather the signatures needed to initiate a law.......

A petition drive is not easy. You have to gather signatures only of registered voters. The same voter cannot sign two petitions. Your petition circulators all have to be registered voters. And every signature must go onto a petition from the correct county. There’s a lot that can go wrong.

A well-run petition campaign gathers the necessary amount of signatures, and then many thousands more in case some get tossed later. They’ll “scrub” their own petitions of duplicate signatures, non-registered voters, petitions that were filled out incorrectly by circulators.

Right to Life turned in more than 315,000 signatures. It takes about 258,000. That’s a cushion of more than 57,000 signatures. Right to Life figures it threw out 20,000 signatures, just didn’t turn them in, because they were somehow spoiled. The opponents of this drive are not going to stop it because it came up short of signatures.

FULL STORY

Congressman working to expose Obamacare's abortion funding

Rep. Chris Smith

In the Washington Times, Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) explains some of the pro-abortion provisions in Obamacare.

In the run-up to passage of Obamacare, Americans were repeatedly told and reassured by President Obama himself, including in a speech to a joint session of Congress in October 2009, that “under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion .”
.........
Rollout of the Obamacare exchanges reveals that many health insurance plans throughout the nation will subsidize abortion on demand — even late-term abortions. For example, the preliminary data suggests that every insurance plan on the Connecticut and Rhode Island exchanges will pay for abortion on demand.

Billions of taxpayers’ dollars will now be handed out as credits to buy pro-abortion health insurance — a clear violation of the Hyde Amendment’s fundamental principle of restricting funds to abortion-subsidizing health insurance plans.

In response to the often hidden abortion-funding mechanisms in Obamacare, Representative Smith has introduced legislation to require information about abortion coverage to be prominently displayed.  

FULL STORY

California passes law to allow non-physicians to perform abortions

Not content with having one of the highest abortion rates in the nation, pro-abortion legislators in the state of California have passed legislation to allow certain non-physicians (nurse practitioners, physicians assistants and certified nurse-midwives) to perform suction aspiration abortions in the first trimester.  The bill was recently signed by California’s pro-abortion governor, Jerry Brown.     

FULL STORY

Prolife volunteers complete petition drive months early

Petitions delivered

Keeping tax dollars and insurance premiums from paying for the destruction of innocent human life as part of health care is a high priority for registered voters in Michigan. Volunteers across the state circulated petitions throughout the summer to initiate Abortion Insurance Opt-Out legislation. More than 315,000 signatures were submitted to the Secretary of State's office today sending a strong message to Michigan lawmakers that abortion is not health care.

Right to Life of Michigan President Barbara Listing said, "Prolife people from every county in Michigan responded to the need to keep our tax dollars and health insurance premiums from paying for abortion. Because of their efforts, the petition drive was cut-off more than 2 months early. Volunteers organized opportunities for people to sign at churches, county fairs, family reunions, athletic events, and we even heard of a bride circulating petitions at her wedding reception. The dedication of people is inspiring."

Michigan's Constitution allows the people of the state to initiate legislation through a petition; 258,088 signatures of registered voters needed to be collected in 180 days to initiate the Abortion Insurance Opt-Out Act. Signatures for the NO Taxes for Abortion Insurance petition drive were collected in less than 4 months.

Listing said, "Enthusiastic volunteers are sending a loud and clear message that abortion should not be included as a standard 'benefit' in health insurance plans. Well more than the required signatures were submitted today, driving home the point that abortion ends a life and cannot be considered health care."

After the Board of Canvassers verifies the signatures, the legislature will have 40 calendar days to respond. With a simple majority vote in both the Michigan House and Senate, the Abortion Insurance Opt-Out Act becomes law without the governor's signature. A majority of the House and Senate have already signed the petition.

Similar Abortion Insurance Opt-Out legislation was passed by Michigan representatives and senators in December 2012; however Governor Rick Snyder vetoed the bill. Because of the governor's veto, the petition drive was necessary.

Listing said, "Our actions speak volumes. Abortion is not health care and the people of Michigan want to join the other 23 states which have opted-out of abortion coverage in the health plans offered through the Affordable Care Act."

Michigan abortionist botches another abortion, sends woman to hospital

Michigan abortion Reginald Sharpe has a long history of botching abortions.  This week he botched another abortion as local prolifers were on hand to witness a woman being taken from the Summit Medical Center abortion clinic by ambulance to a hospital. 

Earlier this year, Sharpe closed two abortion clinics he operated in SE Michigan after he declared bankruptcy after being sued by women he injured during abortions. 

FULL STORY

Petition Drive Success

Dedicated volunteers get the job done

Dedicated prolife volunteers circulated NO Taxes for Abortion Insurance petitions in every Michigan County. People from all walks of life have participated in the opportunity to initiate Abortion Insurance Opt-Out legislation to keep our tax dollars and health insurance premiums from paying for abortion as part of health care. This is democracy in action. The deadline for submitting the NO Taxes for Abortion Insurance petitions to initiate Abortion Insurance Opt-Out legislation has come and gone. The petitions are being processed and will soon be delivered to the Michigan Secretary of State Office. The Board of Canvassers may take 6 to 7 weeks to validate the signatures. Sign-up for email updates at www.rtl.org for the latest information.

MICHIGAN'S VOICE