LifeNet

ALERT: House vote on NO Taxpayer Funding of Abortion Legislation & info on meeting with U.S. Congresswoman Nan Hayworth

UPDATE and ACTION ALERT: This is crucial! Vote is imminent. Here's an easy way to contact your Representative and strongly urge support for HR 3. Hit this link!!

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to take up a major pro-life bill -- the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (H.R. 3) -- on or about Wednesday, May 4, 2011. National Right to Life urges you to promptly contact the office of your representative in the U.S. House, to urge him or her to support H.R. 3, and to oppose all amendments that may be offered by opponents of the bill.

Notes from April 21st meeting with Nan Hayworth

Alan Mehldau, Chairman of the Northern Westchester and Putnam Center for Life, Richard Fuerst, Chairman of the Westchester Putnam Right to Life PAC, and Judith Anderson, Co-director of the Hudson Valley Coalition for Life, visited with Nan Hayworth in her Fishkill offices on Holy Thursday evening, April 21, at 5 p.m. The meeting was cordial and included Robert E. Difrancesco, Deputy District Director, (19th District) and Maureen Natrella, Chairman of the Dutchess County Conservative Party.

Alan opened the business part of our chat by thanking Nan for her efforts on defunding Planned Parenthood in the Budget Bill negotiations and asking for support for the following bills: H.R. 3 - No Taxpayer Fund for Abortion Act which would advance a permanent ban on abortion funding, and H.R. 361 - Abortion Non-Discrimination Act of 2011. Information packets left with her also included information on H.R. 1179 Respect for Rights of Conscience Act of 201, and H.R. 358, the Protect Life Act which seeks to rectify the flawed treatment of abortion, conscience rights and fairness to immigrants in the new health care Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). See www.usccb.org/healthcare . Alan reiterated our position on taxpayer funding of abortion and conscience protections, and ecouraged Nan to read the Chiaroscuro Foundation's study about Planned Parenthood and federal funding, which was given to her.

Nan voted with Rep. John Boehner's compromise deal that stripped PP funding from the final legislation and placed it in the Senate on a direct vote. She explained why she felt tax dollars should not be spent this way, but would not go so far as to agree with us that Planned Parenthood is in the "big business" of abortion, nor would she see any "sinister" motives in their clinic/educational objectives. It was suggested to Nan that she check out their recently revamped website www.teenwire.com to review their focus. We mentioned the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, and her racist, eugenic/population control philosophies. We were surprised to hear Nan say she was not familiar with her, so we gave her a brief tutorial and left biographical information. We wonder how many Planned Parenthood "supporters" have ever researched or heard of Ms. Sanger.

Rich pressed Nan and she shared her thinking on fiscal sanity for the nation that included her support for raising the debt ceiling, with serious spending concessions as a necessary part of the deal. Nan was her most animated self when speaking about fiscal issues; more guarded on social issues. We asked about Paul Ryan's budget and about Standard & Poor's possible negative view of the U.S. credit outlook, reminding her that she was sent to Washington with a big boost from Tea Party conservatives. We asked her if she saw her supporters in this voting block as the "values voters" they are, and it was here that we parted company on the national issue of the Obama Administration's backing off support for The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Nan believes that this decision should be left to the states, but when pressed said adamantly that she does not support defense of DOMA either. Our efforts, she said, would be better focused on "covenant marriages" and the problem of divorce there. Her response was unexpected and a major disappointment, and we told her so, still trying to make our points as the door to her office was closed behind us.

All in all it was an interesting, if occasionally disappointing meeting. We thank Nan for her time and for her unseating of John Hall. We encourage all citizens to take time to visit their local representatives to make their positions known, now especially on PP tax funding and marriage, if not in person then by telephone or email.

Contact Congresswoman Nan Hayworth at www.hayworth.house.gov/ or call 202.225.5441 in D.C. or in Goshen 845.206.4600.

 

An interview with Carol Tobias, new head of National Right to Life Committee

In National Review Online (NRO) -

A pro-life leader brings some truth to bear against slanderous hype

Around the time Planned Parenthood was doing what looked to be a victory march on MSNBC — ironically in the face of intense scrutiny and skepticism about its commitment to “women’s health” — Carol Tobias was becoming the new president of the National Right to Life Committee, the umbrella group for 50 state organizations and over 3,000 local chapters across the country that work “through legislation and education to protect those threatened by abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and assisted suicide.” The National Right to Life Committee is considered the pro-life standard in politics, keeping track of votes with consistency and dedication. She talked to National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez about her new role and about the status of a culture of life in America.

 

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: How does one wind up president of the National Right to Life Committee? I mean, beyond a board election?

CAROL TOBIAS: I basically grew up with National Right to Life. My parents helped to organize North Dakota Right to Life. When I was a young adult with time on my hands, I got involved as a volunteer with my local chapter; I then became executive director of North Dakota Right to Life and got to know NRLC staff, as well as leaders from other state affiliates. From 1991 to 2005, I served as National Right to Life’s political director, working closely with all 50 state affiliates. So I know National Right to Life, and people involved with National Right to Life know me.

American Life League (ALL): Planned Parenhood and Catholics

The one non-negotiable budget item for the Obama Administration: Planned Parenthood and abortion

The Democrats were prepared to shut down the Federal Government if they couldn't supply tax dollars to Planned Parenthood.

Here are three articles -

The first from The Washington Examiner:

Democrats will yield on everything but abortion

This Democratic Senate and White House are clearly willing to disappoint their base on many issues. They've agreed to spending cuts and tax cuts for the wealthy, scrapped a public option, and continued warrantless wiretaps, indefinite detention of terrorism suspects and unnecessary wars on Arab dictators. But in last week's budget debate we glimpsed the party's unshakable core: dedication to the abortion lobby.

President Obama had promised to veto the House-passed bill funding government through the end of the fiscal year, and Majority Leader Harry Reid made it clear the Senate would never pass it. But the final agreement -- with most of the cuts Republicans wanted, plus funding for school vouchers in Washington -- proved that the Democratic opposition was grounded not in Keynesian fears of spending cuts or liberal concern over service cuts.

The deal breaker for Democrats had been the rider cutting off federal funds for Planned Parenthood. As a "senior Democratic source" told the Huffington Post on Friday, "The cuts will be hard for us to swallow, but we won't bend on Title X" -- that is, federal funding of Planned Parenthood. "Reid doesn't even have to go back to the caucus to ask on that one."

>>>>>>>>>

Planned Parenthood points out that most of its services do not involve abortion, but this misses the point. First, if Planned Parenthood didn't provide abortions, there would be very little energy to strip its funding. Second, almost all of its services for pregnant women are abortions, according to its own fact sheet published last month: It performed 332,278 abortions in 2009, while serving 7,021 prenatal clients and referring 977 parents to adoption services.

The Wall Street Journal:

Who's the Extremist Now? 

In the end, President Barack Obama was the one who refused to blink on Planned Parenthood. Another way of saying it is this: The president was willing to shut down the entire federal government rather than see Planned Parenthood's federal funding cut.

According to press accounts leaked by Democratic aides, House Speaker John Boehner argued for the funding cut late into the evening. The president answered, "Nope, zero." He then said, "John, this is it." Mr. Boehner accepted the budget deal without that cut.

A Republican aide confirmed more or less the same account to me. He said it was "chilling" to see how inflexible Mr. Obama was. You might call it ideological.

From National Review Online:

Abortion and the Budget

The fact that the budget dispute resolved last night, threatening a partial shutdown of the national government, came down to the funding of Planned Parenthood, is a striking confirmation of Ramesh Ponnuru’s description of the strongest elements of the Democratic Party as belonging to the “Party of Death.” The underlying “fidelity-to-the-central-holding-of-Roe” litmus test for Supreme Court nominees, familiar since the Bork hearings of the 1980s, now seems to be the test for budget bills as well. If the decision whether to keep the government functioning at full strength boils down to resolution of a controversy over abortion, then we seem to be approaching a situation of the kind that obtained shortly before the Civil War ...

Donald Trump explains his pro-life conversion

Is it real?

Trump characterized himself as “pro-life” and he repeated that apparent reversal when he told the audience at CPAC, “I am pro-life”

That was a marked change from how Trump described himself in his  2000 book The America We Deserve, where he wrote, “I support a woman’s right to choose but I am uncomfortable with the procedures.”

Today, in a new interview with CBN News’ David Brody, Trump explains the evolution of his thinking and how stories of pregnancies — including one in particular — helped change his mind on abortion.

“Evangelicals do want to feel secure that they’re going to have a nominee that’s going to at least be solid on those issues, those social issues. Someone that’s not just going to cut and move on,” Brody said to Trump.

The billionaire responded, “One thing about me, I’m a very honorable guy. I’m pro-life, but I changed my view a number of years ago.”

“One of the reasons I changed — one of the primary reasons — a friend of mine’s wife was pregnant, in this case married. She was pregnant and he didn’t really want the baby. And he was telling me the story,” Trump told Brody. “He was crying as he was telling me the story. He ends up having the baby and the baby is the apple of his eye. It’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to him. And you know here’s a baby that wasn’t going to be let into life. And I heard this, and some other stories, and I am pro-life.”

“So those stories did change you, they came around and changed you?” Brody asked.

“They changed me. Yeah, they changed my view as to that, absolutely,” Trump responded.

Pro-life medical students face discrimination

From National Review Online -

Some of the stories we heard may startle you.

Take “Christine,” who said that none of her professors talk about relationships in medicine, only the ideology of just performing the procedure. We also learned of “Ryan,” who was punished by his own mentor. He was the only one among his peers to suggest adoption for a woman in a troubled pregnancy; everyone else recommended abortion as the first and only option. A memo by his professor later surfaced in which he declared that “Ryan” would be a future abortion-clinic bomber. This memo was never sent to Ryan but went straight into his student file, the hub of school performance evaluation that becomes critical when students apply to residency programs. He was blacklisted for believing women deserve options.

Then there’s “Mary,” who said she felt intellectually assaulted during her OB/GYN rotation in her school’s training hospital. She recalls being inundated with professor instructions to promote abortions continually for pregnant patients, never mind her personal beliefs about it. The same was recommended for sterilization and abortifacients, drugs intended to prevent pregnancy that kill a new human embryo before a woman knows she’s pregnant.

Lila Rose/Live Action in debate over Planned Parenthood

On O'Reilly Factor

 

Nice feature about major league pitcher Trever Miller and his disabled daughter

From the Knights of Columbus (K of C).

Winner at Home

As he begins his 12th season as a major league pitcher, Trever Miller is familiar with baseball’s performance measurements: earned run average, strikeout-walk ratio, winning percentage, saves and a dozen other metrics. A lanky lefty reliever with the St. Louis Cardinals, who specializes in retiring left-handed batters in late innings, he even holds a major league record for consecutive mound appearances without a win or loss decision. Having pitched for five teams, the 37-year-old hurler’s lifetime record is a respectable 18-16.

But as a father of a child who was born with two holes in her heart and a genetic disorder so rare that it doesn’t have a name, Miller measures success in life in more basic ways these days – the next breath, a winning smile, a new movement from his daughter Grace. She was not supposed to leave the hospital after birth yet turns a miraculous 7 years old in June.