Category: Abortion

‘Controversy’ Over: National Right to Life Vouches for Cain’s Pro-Life Bona Fides

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We should consider the abortion kerfuffle kicked off by the Piers Morgan interview Wednesday as being decisively ended now:

The National Right to Life Committee is today [Friday] vouching for Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s bona fides, saying the businessman who is considered by many to be the current GOP frontrunner is pro-life. …
“Herman Cain’s pro-life,” David O’Steen, executive director of the National Right to Life Committee, told National Review. “He addressed our convention last June. We are quite confident in his pro-life position. When he ran in the primary for senate some years back … he ran as a pro-life candidate then in Georgia. We’ve known of him for a number of years, and he’s always taken a pro-life position.”

Katrina Trinko at National Review notes that Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List remained skeptical as of Friday, but I think most pro-lifers would say if you’re OK with David O’Steen, you’re OK.

Jazz Shaw was kind of obnoxious about this yesterday, suggesting that Cain has a “truth problem.” The actual problem, as I see it, is that Cain wants to seem thoughtful and engaged during interviews like this, and so he responds to questions with something more than talking points, without stopping to think: “Hey, this guy’s trying to push me into a corner and get me in trouble.” Continue reading ‘Controversy’ Over: National Right to Life Vouches for Cain’s Pro-Life Bona Fides →

‘Money Is Fungible’: ObamaCare and the Fight to Defund Planned Parenthood

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Calling for Congress to pass the Protect Life Act — which would prevent Planned Parenthood from getting funded by ObamaCare — Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life said: ““Money is fungible. Taxpayers should not be involuntary donors to the abortion industry and health care workers’ conscience rights must be protected.” (Click here for full statement.)

Nancy Pelosi is going nuts:

“Under this bill, when the Republicans vote for this bill today, they will be voting to say that women can die on the floor and health care providers do not have to intervene if this bill is passed. It’s just appalling.”

And other Democrats are following Pelosi’s lead:

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) on Thursday charged House Republicans of misogynous motives in bringing up a bill that seeks to limit federal funding for abortion.
“What my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are attempting to do is misogynist,” Speier said on the House floor. “It is absolutely misogynist.”
“This bill goes to the farthest extreme in trying to take women down, not just a peg, but to take in shackles to some cave somewhere,” Speier said.

Hey, remember when Democrats were demanding that we tone down the rhetoric? Remember “civility”? So now Democrats are calling Republicans misogynists who want women to die, or to put them “in shackles to a cave somewhere.”

Civility! If it weren’t for double-standards, Democrats would have no standards at all.

House GOP: ‘Instead of Raising Taxes, Why Don’t We Stop Funding Abortion?’

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An excellent suggestion!

A Congressional committee has taken the first steps in investigating the Planned Parenthood abortion business over abuses ranging from financial disparities to its compliance with federal regulations on taxpayer funding to concerns that it is covering up cases of sex trafficking.
In a September 15 letter LifeNews.com obtained, Rep. Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican who is the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Investigations, writes to Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood.
“Pursuant to Rules X and XI of the United States House of Representatives, the Committee on Energy and Commerce is examining the institutional practices and policies of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and its affiliates, and its handing of federal funding,” Stearns writes. “That Committee has questions about the policies in place and actions undertaken by PPFA and its affiliates relating to its use of federal funding and its compliance with federal restrictions on the funding of abortion.”
The letter asks Richards to comply with current federal regulations and legal obligations by providing Congress with a wide range of documents within two weeks of the date of the letter.
“Please provide all internal audit reports conducted by PPFA and its affiliates from 1998 to 2010. If not clearly indicated in the audit reports, please detail how much PPFA and each affiliate expended and received in Title XIX Medicaid funding, Title X family planning, and any other federal funding,” the letter says.

In other words: “Just askin’ questions,” IYKWIMAITYD. Planned Parenthood has never been forced to account for their expenditures of federal money, and pro-lifers have a hunch that once taxpayers find out what they’ve been paying for, they won’t want to pay it any more. But the people who sold their souls to the Abortion, Inc. stay bought:

Reps. Henry Waxman (Calif.), senior Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), the ranking member of the panel’s Oversight subcommittee, claim Republicans have “singled out” the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) “as part of a Republican vendetta against an organization that provides family planning and other medical care to low-income women and men generous campaign contributions to Democrats.”

Fixed that for you, Henry. And here’s a statement from Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life:

“AUL welcomes the news that Congress is investigating the abortion mega-provider Planned Parenthood for financial improprieties and its poor handling of the public trust. AUL’s groundbreaking report on Planned Parenthood released this summer outlines a template for investigators and provides extensive information on the abortion giant. The American taxpayer does not want to be in the business of abortion, and this investigation is an important first step toward ending public funding of the nation’s largest abortion provider.
“We also want to congratulate Rep. Cliff Stearns, chairman of the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, for his leadership on this issue and for his willingness to look more closely at Planned Parenthood and its affiliates for their fraudulent use of taxpayer dollars, as outlined in AUL’s report.”

UPDATE: This goes to show, BTW, why fiscal conservatives should pay attention to social conservatives. Many of the government policies that social conservatives find objectionable have a fiscal component that generate the instinctive taxpayer response, “They’re spending my money on what?”

And if you think deeply about these issues, you have to ask yourself why it makes sense to spend taxpayer money to kill future taxpayers, which is what Planned Parenthood has been doing for decades.

PREVIOUSLY:

Bachmann Will Co-Host, Rick Perry Will Co-Chair Pro-Life Group’s November Gala

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Need a demonstration of the continued influence of the pro-life movement in Republican Party politics? When Americans United for Life announced its 40th anniversary gala, the long list of congressional co-hosts included Michele Bachmann — who just won the Iowa GOP straw poll — while Texas Gov. Rick Perry is among three honorary co-chairs for the event. Here is the press release from AUL:

Political Heavyweights Join
Americans United for Life
for its 40th Anniversary Gala
Honorary Co-Chairs Texas Governor Rick Perry,
U. S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions lead a stellar list of Honorary Hosts for an historic event.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (08-15-11) – National leaders and political luminaries will join together in November to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Americans United for Life — the nation’s premier pro-life legal team and the country’s first national pro-life organization — incorporated in 1971 before the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. The high profile event is already marked by an impressive list of pro-life leaders serving as honorary hosts of the much-anticipated evening.
AUL President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest noted that the anniversary gala would mark the “accumulated pro-life victories AUL has earned through years of public service and the people who made them possible.”
Milestones for AUL include: successfully defending the Hyde Amendment before the U.S. Supreme Court, establishing the intellectual groundwork for Fetal Homicide legislation now passed in 38 states, reducing abortions state by state through cutting-edge model legislation found in Defending Life (a catalogue of 39 pieces of model legislation), leading in the fight against assisted suicide, and testifying for life in state legislatures around the country and in the last two Supreme Court justice confirmation hearings. . . .

Details for attendance
What: AUL’s 40th Anniversary Gala
Where: The Newseum, Washington, D.C.
When: Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Honorary Hosts for the event include
FROM THE SENATE:
Senator Kelly Ayotte
Senator Roy Blunt
Senator Richard Burr
Senator Tom Coburn
Senator Jim DeMint
Senator Michael Enzi
Senator Lindsey Graham
Senator Chuck Grassley
Senator Orrin Hatch
Senator John Hoeven
Senator Mike Johanns
Senator John McCain
Senator Rand Paul
Senator Marco Rubio
Senator Richard Shelby
Senator Roger Wicker

FROM THE HOUSE:
Congressman Robert Aderholt
Congressman Todd Akin
Congressman Steve Austria
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann
Congressman Dan Boren
Congressman Paul Broun
Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle
Congressman Dave Camp
Congressman Jerry Costello
Congresswoman Renee Ellmers
Congressman Blake Farenthold
Congresswoman Virginia Foxx
Congressman Trent Franks
Congressman Scott Garrett
Congressman Phil Gingrey
Congressman Louie Gohmert
Congressman Bob Goodlatte
Congresswoman Kay Granger
Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler
Congressman Joe Heck
Congressman Bill Huizenga
Congressman Randy Hultgren
Congressman Darrell Issa
Congressman Sam Johnson
Congressman Walter Jones
Congressman Adam Kinzinger
Congressman James Lankford
Congressman Tom Latham
Congressman Steven LaTourette
Congressman Daniel Lipinski
Congressman Billy Long
Congressman Frank Lucas
Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer
Congressman Don Manzullo
Congressman Thaddeus McCotter
Congressman David McKinley
Congresswoman Candice Miller
Congressman Jeff Miller
Congressman Mick Mulvaney
Congressman Randy Neugebauer
Congressman Alan Nunnelee
Congressman Steve Pearce
Congressman Mike Pence
Congressman Collin Peterson
Congressman Tom Petri
Congressman Joe Pitts
Congressman Mike Pompeo
Congressman Ben Quayle
Congressman Denny Rehberg
Congresswoman Martha Roby
Congressman Mike Rogers
Congressman Todd Rokita
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
Congressman Paul Ryan
Congressman Tim Scott
Congressman Chris Smith
Congressman Lamar Smith
Congressman Cliff Sterns
Congressman Lee Terry
Congressman Scott Tipton
Congressman Fred Upton
Congressman Allen West
Congressman Lynn Westmoreland

VIDEO: ‘Demographic Winter’

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My wife and I have six children, which is three times the national average in the U.S. People often ask, “Are you Catholic?” No, we’re proudly Protestant. Yet one cannot ignore the fact that, almost alone among major Christian denominations, the Catholic Church has a well-developed pro-life, pro-family doctrine as part of its basic belief system. It is lamentable that Protestants — even conservative denominations — have not followed suit, insofar as I think that the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, for example, has proven quite literally prophetic in its forecast of the social consequences of what has been called the Contraceptive Culture. (See “The Pill at 50: Unhappy Un-Birthday.”)

One obviously need not be a Catholic to see this, nor even a Christian, because every man may examine the facts for himself. And strangely, most people remain utterly unaware of the dire results of a collapsing birth rate. If you’ve read Mark Steyn’s America Alone or Pat Buchanan’s The Death of the West, you know what I’m talking about. But those are political books by conservatives, and the arguments made by Steyn and Buchanan are apt to be rejected by those who aren’t interested in politics, or who don’t share the conservative views of the authors. In the same way, religious arguments about sexual matters are likely to be rejected by people who aren’t religious.

Therefore, it was very encouraging when an e-mailer sent me a link to this video hosted at a Catholic site, Gloria.TV, of the 2008 documentary Demographic Winter. It’s 54 minutes long, but it’s well worth watching.

The important thing to understand is that there are no inexorable trends in human affairs that we are powerless to resist. Men make trends, and not the other way around. Change begins with one person — and that person is you. Do not ask what government can do. Do not ask what your neighbor or your church can do. Instead ask yourself, “What can I do?” And whatever that is, do it.

Don’t look at me. I’ve got six kids — certainly I’m part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Pro-Life Republicans Hail ‘Blueprint’ for Investigation of Planned Parenthood

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“This is a blueprint — this is an engraved invitation to investigate,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said Thursday of a new report documenting taxpayer-funded abuses by the nation’s largest abortion provider. “Planned Parenthood has never been adequately investigated,” he said.

Smith, a veteran pro-life leader in Congress, was one of several House Republicans who called for hearings during a Capitol Hill press conference about a new 181-page report by Americans United for Life,  The Case for Investigating Planned Parenthood.

Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.) called the AUL report “groundbreaking,” and said: “The American people want accountability for how tax dollars are being spent. . . . If there is any question of abuse, misuse or fraud, we need to bring that forward. That is our responsibility as members of Congress.”

“The issue today is, should American taxpayer dollars be going to pay for abortions?” said Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.). “Overwhelmingly, we’ve heard from the American people that they don’t want to see their funds going that way. . . . The money can be much better spent elsewhere.”

“By Planned Parenthood’s own accounting, $363 million — one-third of its budget annually — comes from the American taxpayer,” said Dr. Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life.  “While Congress is discussing going deeper in debt and raising the debt ceiling. . . our government is quietly subsidizing the world’s largest abortion provider with $1 million a day.”

Cheryl Wetzstein reports in The Washington Times:

A House hearing has not been set, the members said. However, Rep. Cliff Stearns, Florida Republican and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said in a statement that he is considering holding a hearing on Planned Parenthood. . . .
The Government Accountability Office has reported that Planned Parenthood spent $657.1 million in federal funds from 2002 to 2008, but Americans United for Life researchers found that Planned Parenthood reported more than $2 billion in “government grants and contracts” during that time, [Dr. Yoest] said.

Video of Ellmers at the press conference:

Video of Hultgren at the press conference:

Video of Smith at the press conference: