Supreme Court rules in King v. Burwell: Subsidies include abortion insurance

 Today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of King v. Burwell, which dealt with federal subsidies for health insurance purchased on federal health exchanges. This is the second major case upholding parts of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

Here are several major points about how the decision will affect prolife people:

• The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling means federal subsidies will continue for plans purchased on health care exchanges, including plans that pay for abortions.
• Because of the grassroots efforts of prolifers across Michigan to collect more than 316,000 signatures to initiate the Abortion Insurance Opt-Out Act, the law was passed in 2013. Because of this law, subsidized plans purchased in Michigan do not include abortion coverage.
• The federal Hyde Amendment prevents tax funding of most abortions, but because the Hyde Amendment does not apply to these subsidies, our federal tax dollars will continue to subsidize abortion coverage in states without an opt-out law.
• The federal government should either apply the Hyde Amendment to health subsidies, or pass the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act to stop forcing people who object to abortion to fund abortions for others.

If you have any question about the decision, please contact Right to Life of Michigan at 616-532-2300 or info@rtl.org.

Click here for a PDF of the King v. Burwell opinions from the Supreme Court.

Belgium's leap off the moral cliff

The New Yorker has an article on Belgium's leap off the moral cliff, their acceptance of euthanasia, physicians willing to euthanize anyone who asks and a man who wasn't informed of his mother's euthanasia until after she was killed.

In the past five years, the number of euthanasia and assisted-suicide deaths in the Netherlands has doubled, and in Belgium it has increased by more than a hundred and fifty per cent. Although most of the Belgian patients had cancer, people have also been euthanized because they had autism, anorexia, borderline personality disorder, chronic-fatigue syndrome, partial paralysis, blindness coupled with deafness, and manic depression......

He recently approved the euthanasia of a twenty-five-year-old woman with borderline personality disorder who did not "suffer from depression in the psychiatric sense of the word," he said. "It was more existential; it was impossible for her to have a goal in this life." He said that her parents "came to my office, got on their knees, and begged me, ‘Please, help our daughter to die.'"

FULL STORY

Clinic Laws and Enforcement Matter!

For years, abortion clinics in Michigan weren’t regulated and weren’t regularly inspected.  The Abortion Abuses and State Regulator Agency Failure Report released by Right to Life of Michigan in 2011 showed that most of Michigan's abortion clinics were not in compliance with dozens of state laws or regulations. The report also cited a vital need for oversight and enforcement on the part of Michigan agencies charged with holding health providers and facilities to account.

Below are some examples of what has been happening in the past few months in Michigan as a result of enforcement of prolife laws that Right to Life of Michigan spearheaded in the Michigan Legislature.

• Martin Ruddock is an Ohio-based abortionist who has been traveling up and down the I-75 corridor over the past two years performing abortions for various Michigan abortion clinics. His foray into Michigan is the result of clinics he was associated with in Ohio closing based on the Buckeye State's prolife laws. Ruddock was found not to have proper Michigan prescribing licenses at one clinic and was discovered to have unethically pre-signed a prescription pad for routine drugs that the clinic staff could utilize in his absence. The prescription pad was seized by state inspectors, he was forced to pay fees for the proper licenses, and he was fined $1,000.00 for not having the proper licenses. (February 2015)

• Franklyn Seabrooks, the long-time abortionist at the Scotsdale abortion clinic in Detroit was fined $500.00 for failing to have a proper controlled substance license, plus fees for compliance.  Abortionists like Seabrooks are feeling the effects of consistent oversight for the first time in 42 years. Their shoddy and sometimes dangerous practices are coming to an end. (May 2015)

• Abortionist Jacob Kalo is struggling to get himself out of trouble, including still being prevented from performing surgical abortions at his notorious clinic in Lathrup Village. The state ordered surgical abortions to cease there last year based on persistent inspection failures. An administrative hearing to determine whether the clinic would be allowed to re-start surgical abortions was slated for June 9, 2015.  That hearing was postponed at Kalo's request as he seems to be embroiled in other personal challenges (a separate a private lawsuit) and can't seem to manage the problems he's caused for himself all at the same time. (Ongoing)

• Infamous abortionists, Angel Ojeda and Michael Roth are currently subjects of a lawsuit stemming from the Eastland Women's Center abortion clinic in Detroit. The two are accused of misdiagnosing an ectopic pregnancy, with Ojeda prescribing the RU-486 abortion pill regimen to a 23-year-old college student. When complications from the undetected, but ongoing ectopic pregnancy developed, both Ojeda and Roth are accused of misdiagnosing the woman's situation and delaying proper treatment. Eventually her fallopian tube ruptured, which required life-saving surgery to remove her fallopian tube. Perhaps with this incident, the Eastland abortion clinic will receive additional scrutiny by state regulators. (Lawsuit filed February 2015)

Abortionist in northern Indiana surrenders license to operate Gary clinic

Yesterday, abortionist Ulrich “George” Klopfer surrendered his license to operate at his abortion clinic in Gary, Indiana.  The clinic has been closed since May 27, 2015.  On June 25, Klopfer will face a hearing with the Indiana Medical Licensing Board over his medical license which is currently under review.  Klopfer has had various issues including failing to report statutory rape in a timely manner. 

Klopfer will be in front of the Indiana Medical Licensing Board on June 25 for a hearing regarding the status of his medical licenses. His licenses are currently listed as “valid while under review.” The hearing was scheduled after the Indiana attorney general’s office filed an official complaint in September.

According to Nick Goodwin, spokesman for the Professional Licensing Agency, the outcome of Klopfer’s medical licensing hearing could range from no sanction to a letter of reprimand, to a fine, to the license being placed on probation, suspension or revoked.

Klopfer also has a court date set for July 13 in misdemeanor court in Lake County for failing to file a timely report of a terminated pregnancy he provided to a girl younger than the age of 14. He was charged with the same misdemeanor in St. Joseph County, but was granted pretrial diversion in December, with charges dismissed within a year if he abides by terms of the program.

FULL STORY

Michigan woman shares horrific abortion experience

On the radio show Kresta in the Afternoon, a Michigan woman whose late-term abortion was botched shared her experience. 

DAY ONE:

The first day, Jessica said that she received an injection of digoxin and her overall visit to the clinic lasted about twenty minutes.

Digoxin is a drug injected into an unborn baby to cause his or her heart to stop in preparation for what amounts to a stillborn birth.

It was very painful, Jessica reiterated.

“The first day I was told there would be mild cramping. And, you actually go into labor. When they send you home…I had my son natural and this was much worse.”

Because the pain was so acute, Jessica’s husband called the abortion clinic’s emergency number and they told her under no circumstances to go to the emergency room.

DAY TWO

Jessica said that on day two she was not given any pain medication for the procedure.

“I was told I would have medications and fluids…I was expecting sedation and medication,” she said.

She recalls that after forty-five minutes the abortionist had to stop to call 911 due to a perforated uterus and massive blood loss.

FULL STORY

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW

Population explosion fear-mongering exposed, human life is precious

The New York Times recently published a lengthy article and produced a 12-minute video on the zero population growth movement of late 60's and 70's and how the widely believed claims of population control experts like Paul Ehrlich have proven to be wildly wrong.  

No one was more influential — or more terrifying, some would say — than Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University biologist. His 1968 book, “The Population Bomb,” sold in the millions with a jeremiad that humankind stood on the brink of apocalypse because there were simply too many of us. Dr. Ehrlich’s opening statement was the verbal equivalent of a punch to the gut: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over.” He later went on to forecast that hundreds of millions would starve to death in the 1970s, that 65 million of them would be Americans, that crowded India was essentially doomed, that odds were fair “England will not exist in the year 2000.” Dr. Ehrlich was so sure of himself that he warned in 1970 that “sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come.” By “the end,” he meant “an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity.”

Picture of Paul R. Ehrlich via the Telegraph

Even though Ehrlich predictions have proven embarrassingly wrong, he still clings to his beliefs despite the overwhelming evidence.

At the blog of the Acton Institute, Joseph Sunde reacts to the article and video and the problems in Ehrlich's worldview.

For Ehrlich and many others, humans simply take, take, take; there’s no make, make, make. And thus, the struggle for provision, prosperity, and human flourishing is quickly reduced to a mere battle over consumption. We are leeches, drainers, and destroyers, a virus on the Earth that must be curbed and contained, if not wiped out completely (a “cancer,” as Ehrlich sometimes prefers).

Take, for instance, one of his lines in the video above: “The idea that every woman should have as many babies as she wants is, to me, exactly the same kind of idea as everybody ought to be permitted to throw as much of their garbage into their neighbor’s backyard as they want.”

Humans = bags of backyard garbage. NBD.

Fortunately for us (and for Ehrlich), humans aren’t globs of trash and the “global community” isn’t some morbid zero-sum realm wherein every new baby represents a dead mushroom on a distant mountaintop.

As Julian Simon famously observed, humans are the “ultimate resource” — valuable assets to our families, neighbors, distant strangers, and, yes, Planet Earth herself. We were created in the image of a creator-God to be co-creators and gift-givers, sharing, exchanging, collaborating, and innovating alongside the grand family of humankind. Each new child represents not some bag of waste, but a a creator and a dreamer — a unique and precious person born for relationship and brimming with capacity for production, investment, and love.
 

More than a generation after his book's apocalyptic warnings, Ehrlich's blindness to the uniqueness and preciousness of human life prevent him from admitting his obvious errors.

Time is running out to get prolife Father's Day bookmarks

 

 

THANK YOU DAD BOOKMARK

These 2" x 6" full color bookmarks feature a poem thanking Dad for life. (Supplies are limited.)

Poem Text:
Thank you Dad for your unconditional love, your caring and understanding, and the comforting hugs.Thank you for sharing your wisdom and for all the sacrifices that you made. And thank you, dad, for life--the biggest gift you gave.

10¢ each

ORDER NOW

Order now while supplies last!
Place your order by Tuesday, June 16^th to receive your bookmarks before Father's Day (Sunday, June 21^st).

Visit www.RTL.org/Store to order today.

California Medical Association abandons opposition to assisted suicide

The California Medical Association has dropped their decades long opposition to assisted suicide after a bill to legalize assisted suicide was introduced in California. 

The CMA said its change to neutral on the issue marked the first by a state medical association. It comes amid renewed debate over doctor-assisted suicide following the death of brain cancer patient Brittany Maynard last fall.

The American Medical Association remains opposed to doctors participating in assisted suicide, saying in a policy statement on its website that doing so was fundamentally incompatible with a doctor's role as a healer, would be difficult to control and posed "serious societal risks." 

The press release announcing their decision is filled with absurd attempts to cover their disregard for the lives of those considering suicide and sounds eerily like the rhetoric and euphemisms used to defend abortion on demand.  Assisted suicide is called “physician aid in dying” or “end of life options.”  The relationship between doctor and patient is exalted. Helping someone kill themselves is equated with methods of “treatment.”

Important issues, which previously led the California Medical Association to oppose assisted suicide and attempts to legalize it, are not mentioned or refuted.  Those issues include the potentials for abuse, the recognition that desire for suicide is rarely a rational decision, fears that legalizing assisted suicide could undermine hospice care, the uncertainly of medical diagnoses, and how assisted suicide violates the fundamental “do no harm” medical ethic.

While the California Medical Association is the first state medical association group to announce they are "neutral" on physicians helping to kill patients, only time will time if they are the last. 

LEARN MORE ABOUT ASSISTED SUICIDE AND EUTHANASIA

Prolife teleseminar scheduled for tomorrow

Join Right to Life of Michigan at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, June 2, for a Prolife Media & Legislative Update Teleseminar.

You will hear from Right to Life of Michigan President Barbara Listing and Legislative Director Ed Rivet. We are looking forward to an exciting summer in Michigan with opportunities to share prolife information. This is your chance to receive the most up-to-date information on what is happening in Michigan regarding LIFE. We expect the teleseminar to be about 20 minutes.

Feel free to share this information with your Michigan friends and family members.

There are two ways for you to listen in:

    Use your phone and call (425) 440-5100; PIN Code: 662744#

    Or, listen via the Internet: http://iTeleseminar.com/70248558

We are looking forward to connecting with you on Tuesday, June 2, at 11 a.m.

New television ads starting this week

Starting this week, two new prolife television ads will begin airing across Michigan. 

One ad is part of the compassion project and features Sheryl and her story of being raped and having an abortion.

“It was acquaintance rape and he denied everything. Next thing I know, I’m in an abortion and I just pretty much went and totally shut down.  I just wish society would realize the long term effect that abortion has on women even in the case of rape. You know, to further traumatize a woman the way I’ve been further traumatized. I just don’t want this to happen to no one else.”  - Sheryl       



You can watch Sheryl’s full story here.

The second ad is a remake of our Seed ad and is a remake of a 1994 favorite which illustrates that like a plant, when life is allowed to grow, the results are beautiful.