Regardless of how many Americans want absolutely nothing to do with their tax dollars going to fund abortions, some obstinate pro-abortion Democrats haven’t given up the fight to try to force us to do just that.
Pro-Abortion Funding Measure Passes House Committee
LifeSiteNews reports on the latest developments on Capitol Hill:
A pro-abortion amendment proposed as a “common ground” amendment was voted into the House version of President Obama’s healthcare overhaul by the Energy and Commerce Committee late Thursday, while a pro-life amendment achieved brief approval before it was struck down again hours later.
California Democrat Lois Capps, whose voting record was rated 100% pro-abortion by NARAL, introduced the faux “common ground” amendment that, while appearing to prohibit the abortion mandate in the healthcare overhaul, actually calls for the public plan to cover abortions and mandates that at least one abortion-covering plan be available in every U.S. region. The amendment was passed 30-28. …
Meanwhile, a pro-life provision offered by Reps. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Joe Pitts (R-PA) to abolish the abortion mandate initially won backing from both conservative Democrats and Republicans. The amendment said that the healthcare overhaul may not require coverage of abortion; however, it did permit exceptions for the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest.
But just before midnight, only hours after the amendment’s approval, Committee Chairman Henry Waxman invoked House rules that allowed him to bring the amendment up for a second vote. A vote change by Blue Dog Democrat Rep. Bart Gordon of Tennessee caused the amendment to fail 29-30. Conservative Democrat Rep. Zack Space of Ohio also voted “no” after abstaining for the first vote.
The vote leaves the Capps “compromise” amendment to dictate the bill’s requirements on abortion funding and coverage.
Although the amendment’s language appears to do away with the abortion mandate, Capitol Hill pro-lifers note that it explicitly permits the Secretary to include abortion in the services offered by the public plan. Indeed, if the Hyde amendment is reversed, the amendment would actually require that the public plan cover abortions.
With regard to the massive subsidies authorized under the act, referred to as “affordability credits,” the Capps amendment specifically requires taxpayer subsidies to flow to plans that include abortion, but creates an accounting scheme designed to give the impression that public funds will not subsidize abortion itself.
Other provisions in the Capps amendment appear to prevent state laws from being overturned and prohibit the Secretary from mandating that all plans include abortion. But the Capps amendment also requires that an abortion-covering plan be made available in every region.
In short, the Capps amendment is a disaster.
The Pro-Life Wisdom of Children
At the Life Training Institute blog, Scott Klusendorf wrote about an experience he had when he was invited by his daughter’s 2nd grade teacher to speaker to her class. He began by holding up a copy of the Declaration of Independence (which the class had studied to the extent 2nd graders can do so ) and read from it: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.”
Scott writes of the experience:
I then asked, “What makes us equal? It can’t be our body size, because some are larger than others. It can’t be our intelligence, because some have good report cards while others have bad. It can’t be our bellybuttons because some point out rather than in. So what makes us equal?”
From all over the room, tiny voices shot back “We’re all human!” Exactly. The only thing we all share equally is our humaness.
I then held up my book The Case for Life. The cover shows a picture of two tiny feet. “What’s this?” Without a moment’s delay, kids all over that room shouted, “a baby in the mommy’s tummy.”
“Right.” And what kind of baby is this?” Again, there was no delay. “It’s a human baby.”
Right again. “But how is this human in the picture different than us?” Hands shot up everywhere. “It’s smaller.” “It looks different.” “It can’t talk yet.” “You can’t see his eyes yet.”
“True. Do you think that any of those differences mean the baby in the picture is less human than any of us?”
A resounding chorus of voices shot back, “No!”
Scott then makes this observation: “Notice the kids didn’t need a doctorate degree to grasp the obvious truth about our common human nature.”
This occurred to me recently while responding to someone who had happened upon our Face the Truth display outside the Art Institute of Chicago a few weeks back and was aghast that some of our signs showing the ugly reality of abortion were being held by children.
This anonymous pro-abort then emailed the League and told us we needed to stop “exploiting” children.
How odd of our correspondent to suggest that children are unfit to protest against the killing of children.
Our children are closer in age to unborn babies than we adults are, and they—perhaps more so than we—can appreciate their vulnerablity of their unborn brothers and sisters who can legally be killed.
New Website: Overpopulationisamyth.com
Population Research Institute has done a yeoman’s service to pro-lifers everywhere with their brand new website, Overpopulationisamyth.com. The highlight is the first in what promises to be a series of sleek videos destroying the ridiculous idea that there are too many people in the world.
The video can be seen here.
