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News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
Earlier this hour, President Obama announced in a White House Press Conference an “adjustment” to the HHS Mandate. The Mandate is set to go into effect in August, and will require all employer health plans to provide free contraceptives, sterilizations and abortifacients.
The HHS originally provided a “religious exemption” so narrow that it would exclude Catholic hospitals, universities and charities, forcing these institutions to act in direct opposition to Catholic teaching through the health care plans they provide. Institutions run by other religious organizations would be likewise affected.
In response to outcry from religious leaders—including 171 Catholic bishops—and Americans from across the political spectrum, Obama today outlined an “adjustment” to the HHS Mandate whereby the objectionable services will be paid for by insurers rather than directly by employers.
Setting aside the fact that contraceptives are not preventative health care—since pregnancy is not a disease—Obama’s adjustment is nothing but a shell game.
At the end of the day, religious employers are still required to provide health plans that offer free contraceptives, sterilizations and abortifacients. [Continue reading ...]
Having grown up in the pro-life movement, I know better than to take anything the mainstream media says at face value, especially when it comes to abortion. As kids, my siblings and I used to get a kick out of how badly the press would butcher the spelling of our family name—let alone the details of pickets and protests we attended.
So when I saw Friday’s Associated Press headline declaring “Komen drops plan to cut Planned Parenthood grants,” I knew I had to see for myself what Komen was really saying. Not surprisingly, the reality is rather far from what that AP and other news outlets were reporting. [Continue reading ...]
Susan G. Komen for the Cure has been taking a beating from Planned Parenthood’s powerful friends in the media and even in Congress in the wake of their decision not to fund Planned Parenthood anymore. They’ve just released a statement setting the record straight on why they’re no longer giving these grants:
Statement from Susan G. Komen for the Cure
February 1, 2012We are dismayed and extremely disappointed that actions we have taken to strengthen our granting process have been widely mischaracterized. It is necessary to set the record straight.
Starting in 2010, Komen began an initiative to help us do a better job of measuring the impact of community grants. This is important because we invest significant dollars in our local community programs—$93 million in 2011, which provided for 700,000 breast health screenings and diagnostic procedures.
Following this review, we made the decision to implement stronger performance criteria for our grantees to minimize duplication and free up dollars for direct services to help vulnerable women. To support this new granting strategy, Komen has also implemented more stringent eligibility standards to safeguard donor dollars. Consequently, some organizations are no longer eligible to receive Komen grants.
Some might argue that our standards are too exacting, but over the past three decades people have given us more than just their money. They have given us their trust and we take that responsibility very seriously.
We regret that these new policies have impacted some longstanding grantees, such as Planned Parenthood, but want to be absolutely clear that our grant-making decisions are not about politics. Throughout our 30 year history, our priority has always been and will continue to be the women we serve. As we move forward, we are working to ensure that there is no interruption or gaps in services for the women who need our support most in the fight against breast cancer.
Planned Parenthood is trying to bully Komen into giving them those grants again. But they’ve brought this on themselves, with all their lies about doing mammograms and all the other dishonesty and deception that marks how they do business.
Late yesterday evening, news broke that the breast cancer education and research organization Susan G. Komen for the Cure would no longer be donating to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion chain.
Pro-life groups across the country—including the Pro-Life Action League are applauding Komen for this decision.
Komen had been making large grants to Planned Parenthood since 2005—over $625,000 in 2010, for example—which were supposed to be earmarked for breast cancer screening and education.
Pro-lifers objected to these grants not only because any support for Planned Parenthood ultimately means contributing to their abortion business, but because of the mounting evidence that abortion actually increases a woman’s risk of breast cancer. [Continue reading ...]
Planned Parenthood of Illinois CEO Carole Brite at a rally in downtown Chicago in February 2011 [Photo by Sam Scheidler]
In a Daily Herald article on this past weekend’s Speakout Illinois Conference, Planned Parenthood’s Carole Brite claims the organization “adheres to the highest standards of medical care for all of our reproductive health care services.”
To that, I respond, “Prove it.”
Unfortunately, there’s no way to verify Brite’s claim. We’ll have to take Brite’s word for it, because Planned Parenthood’s Illinois abortion clinics are not subject to state inspection.
In fact, only 13 of the state’s 22 surgical abortion facilities are subject to inspection—the 9 classified as “pregnancy termination specialty centers” (PTSCs) that do abortions up to 18 weeks, and the 4 classified as “ambulatory surgical treatment centers” (ASTCs) that do abortions up to 24 weeks. [Continue reading ...]
More media coverage today of the oversight of abortion clinics—or lack of it—in Illinois: the Peoria Journal Star reports on the violations found at National Health Care Services.
Before last year’s inspection sweep of Illinois’ nine pregnancy termination special centers (PTSCs), the abortuary hadn’t been inspected in 15 years. State investigators found serious problems there, including shoddy record keeping.
The Journal Star reports that all the violations were corrected by October, at a cost of nearly $10,000.
But what remains to be seen—and is not discussed in today’s story—is whether the state will continue to monitor conditions at the PTSCs, or simply revert to the status quo of decades past when inspections were not done.
March for Life, Washington DC—Three little words from President Obama’s statement yesterday on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade reveal how radical his support for abortion really is. He says we must strive to “reduce the need for abortion.”
Obama dare not hint—by professing a desire to reduce abortion itself—that there’s anything whatsoever wrong with abortion. What’s bad, what we want to reduce, is “the need for” abortion.
Some will say I’m reading too much into these words, that what Obama means to say—what they may even think he is saying—is that he wants to reduce abortion. But he never does say that. Look at his statements on abortion—always careful to add those three little words.
Obama is happy to mislead people on this score, to appear to share a goal most Americans would embrace: to bring the number of abortions down from the staggering current rate of over 1 million a year.
But hidden in those the little words is a clear message to the abortion industry: “I got your back.” They can rest assured he will fight any effort to actually bring down the number of abortions, keepig the focus on that nebulous “need” for it. And he’s proven that commitment again and again over the past 3 years.
Well, here at the 39th Annual March for Life, we’ve got three little words of our own—three little words that inspire our action today and carry us to victory on November 6: “Stop abortion NOW!”
Today the Illinois Supreme Court handed down a ruling [PDF] in Sandholm v. Kuecker, a libel case involving many of the same issues involved with my own libel suit against Planned Parenthood, Scheidler v. Trombley.
Both cases involve the Citizens Participation Act (CPA), enacted in 2007 to protect citizens from so-called “SLAPP” cases—”strategic lawsuits against political participation.” A SLAPP is a meritless lawsuit filed only to discourage free speech or protest activity. The plaintiff bringing the suit does not intend to win it in court, only to punish or intimidate the defendant by imposing the heavy costs of mounting a defense.
In the Sandholm case, a former high school coach and athletic director, Steve Sandholm, sued a group of parents and a media company for libel and slander for statements they made during an ultimately successful effort to get him fired.
Sandholm’s case was dismissed by the trial court under the CPA, citing an earlier ruling by the judge in my case, Judith Brawka. [Continue reading ...]
Joe and Ann Scheidler at the nativity scene at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem
For the past week, my parents—League directors Joe and Ann Scheidler—have been making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. They are pictured here at the creche at the Church of the Nativity, appropriately enough, since they put up two elaborate creches in their home every Christmas.
During their trip, they’re visiting all the principal sites of the Gospel story—the Sea of Galilee, Nazareth, the site of the Ascension, the Mount of Olives, and so forth. But they say the most moving of all was their visit to the site of the Annunciation at the Basilica in Nazareth.
It was in that very spot that Mary said “yes” to God’s plan for her to become the Mother of the Redeemer—a yes that has been echoed down through the ages every time a woman embraces motherhood.
No wonder my parents would find that spot so moving. Their life’s work has been to encourage all mothers, like Mary, not to be afraid of motherhood—to have the faith and hope to say “yes” even in trying circumstances like those Mary faced: poverty, oppression and scandal.
Look for a full report on their Holy Land pilgrimage after they return Wednesday. And then it’s off to the March for Life in Washington, D.C. for the tireless “Godparents” of pro-life activism!
Editor’s Note: This article was published as an op ed in USA Today on Friday, December 9
The outrage coming from abortion advocates over Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ decision not to allow girls under 17 to purchase the Plan B contraceptive without a prescription shows just how far out of step they are with most Americans.
But the pro-life movement welcomes Sebelius’ decision, and hopes that HHS will revisit the question of whether Plan B should be available over the counter to anyone.
In rejecting a recommendation from the Food and Drug Administration that younger teens be allowed to buy Plan B over the counter, Sebelius said there are significant cognitive and behavioral differences between older adolescent girls and the youngest girls of reproductive age.
Any parent knows this is true. But this wisdom is lost on the pro-abortion lobby, which is demanding Sebelius reverse her decision, sacrificing girls’ health to their radical ideology. [Continue reading ...]