abortion

September 22, 2014 By Scott Zipperle 5 Comments

March for Life Responds to GAO Report

This week the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report confirming what pro-lifers have been warning since 2010, your tax dollars are funding abortion through the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”).

Today, the March for Life participated in a press conference calling attention to this broken promise and calling on the Senate to act. Read Jeanne Monahan’s remarks below:

Thank you to Mr. Pitts for sponsoring this important press conference and to all of the Members for taking time during such a full moment to discuss this critical report.

We probably all remember well the March of 2010 when the entire passage of healthcare law hinged on abortion coverage and support. The bottom line was that if abortion was included in the healthcare law, it wouldn’t get the support it needed in Congress to pass. In those intense days President Obama promised that abortion coverage would not be included in the healthcare law. He even went so far as to imply that Hyde protections — the established pro-life protections since the late 70s would remain status quo in the law.

Today we stand here to say that nothing could be further from the truth. We have known that but for those who were confused by the 1000+ pages in the bill and the very confusing rollout of this law, please read this GAO report and take it to heart. There is without a doubt abortion in the healthcare law. This report is about the state exchanges, but abortion is included in other ways. The largest expansion of abortion since Roe vs Wade.

For example, consider the HHS mandate forcing groups like the MfL to cover drugs and devices that can destroy life in its earliest stages. The March for Life is a non-religious, non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated solely to protecting human life in its most vulnerable stages. But because of the healthcare law we are being forced to cover abortifacients in our healthcare. We refuse to do that. And so we are now engaged in litigation fighting this injustice.

This summer the SCOTUS showed us that America still has all three branches keeping each other in check. With that hope we ask you to call your Senator to ask them to support HR7 and right the wrong of the Obama Administration and their broken promises.

September 22, 2014 By Scott Zipperle Leave a Comment

A Long List of Broken Promises

Several weeks ago, I visited healthcare.gov in search of pro-life insurance plans offered under the Affordable Care Act. After spending several frustrating hours on the website, I gained only limited information. For example, I learned that some plans include abortion coverage in the summary of benefits, but more often than not there was no mention of coverage at all. Thus, as a young woman who opposes abortion, I was left in the dark as to whether my hard-earned dollars would pay for abortion.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report this morning that confirms my experience and indicates that there is, in fact, no consistent way to determine which plans under Obamacare cover abortion. The report stunningly reveals that in five states, including my home state of New Jersey, there is not one pro-life plan available. In December of 2013, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was asked under oath by Representative John Shimkus (R-IL) about how to determine the plans that cover abortion. She could not answer his question but promised to provide a list, which ultimately did not happen prior to her leaving the Administration. The Secretary also insisted that such information was clearly provided on the healthcare.gov website. A statement, which, from my experience, is blatantly inaccurate.

Pro-life Americans should not have to spend hours reading summaries of benefits, or talking on the phone with insurance companies, in order to know if their health care plan violates their deeply held beliefs. This reality flies in the face of the transparency that was promised by the Obama Administration.

Your taxes are funding abortions

The GAO report has an even more disturbing revelation: taxpayers from all 50 states are subsidizing abortion under Obamacare, despite the fact that President Obama and members of his Administration, promised the contrary. In 2009, referencing the Hyde Amendment, President Obama told America: “This is a health care bill, not an abortion bill. We are not looking to change what is a core principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions.” [i]

During the healthcare debate in 2009, pro-abortion forces refused to extend Hyde Amendment type protections to the Affordable Care Act. Every year since 1976, the Hyde Amendment has banned federal funding for abortion under Medicaid, and is one of the most significant pro-life policies since Roe v. Wade was decided by the Supreme Court in 1973. Rather than extending the these types of protections, Obamacare set up an “abortion surcharge” through which insurance companies would bill individuals separately for abortion coverage, creating a pool of money funded by individuals, not tax dollars, to pay for abortion. This was not only an accounting gimmick, but it was unfair to Americans who would not know that their money was directly paying for abortion. Americans have the right to informed consent for something as critical as their money paying for abortion!

The GAO report further reveals that not one of the eighteen companies surveyed did actually bill separately or itemized an abortion surcharge! In other words, the accounting gimmick put in place is not even being practiced, and through their taxes, Americans in all 50 states are paying for 1,036 of 2,089 plans to cover abortion. Roughly half of the plans available through Obamacare provide abortion on demand!

The Obama Administration’s list of broken promises continues to grow, and the non-partisan GAO report confirms this. This is not the transparency that America was promised. Please, no more broken promises, Mr. President.

[i] “Obama: ‘This is a Health Care Bill, Not an Abortion Bill” Nov 10, 2009,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pFiCPgmgqE

September 22, 2014 By Scott Zipperle Leave a Comment

What To Do with a ‘Do-Nothing’ Congress

August tends to be a slow, hot month in Washington, D.C., but not everyone was idle last month! Especially this year with the November election holding real promise for a pro-life Senate, organizations that promote the dignity of the human person from conception were actively engaged!

Groups such as the Susan B. Anthony List, Concerned Women for America PAC, FRC Action, National Right to Life Victory Fund and the newly founded Women Speak Out PAC are concentrating on key states to give pro-lifers an edge in the U.S. Senate.

Even with this unified approach pro-life groups face enormous odds as the political arms of taxpayer subsidized abortion giant Planned Parenthood, pro-abortion Emily’s List and the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) are extremely well financed. Planned Parenthood alone plans on spending over $20 million on the election.

Yet signs of confusion and defeat are on the horizon for abortion groups. Their latest approach is to abandon the “pro-choice” label. (An argument Secular Pro-life dissects as “disingenuous.” ) Abortion proponents are trying to normalize and downplay the significance of abortion. Advocating for taxpayer funded abortions, pushing abortion as anything but a “difficult decision” (denying the pain abortion brings to many involved), and calling for the death of babies diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome are just some of the latest trends from those who oppose the inherent dignity of the human person. And groups like Emily’s List, are even running awayfrom their pro-abortion roots and avoiding ads that use the word abortion (or the phrase “pro-choice.”)

So what does any of this have to do with a Hill update? A number of pro-life and pro-abortion groups give support to candidates. We mentioned last month the pro-abortion Democrats current legislation that seeks to eliminate all pro-life laws. There are common sense bills on the pro-life side that seek to protect children at 20 weeks gestation. As schools start up for most young people, here is some homework for everyone:

Where does your Member of Congress stand – and who stands behind them?

Let us know.

July 31, 2014 By Scott Zipperle Leave a Comment

Is July Over Yet?

Pro-abortion forces, and the media that agrees with them, often try to paint the pro-life side as extreme. Issues proven popular with most Americans, such as parental consent for minors seeking an abortion, protecting unborn children at 20-weeks, or even religious protections for entities and individuals that oppose abortion, are described by groups like abortion-giant Planned Parenthood as part of a diabolical scheme in a mythical “War on Women.”

However, during the month of July, pro-abortion Senators in the U.S. Senate exposed what true extremism is by holding a hearing on one radical piece of legislation, and a floor vote on yet another. First up was a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on what is unquestionably the most anti-life bill ever seen in the U.S. Congress, S. 1696, “The Women’s Health Protection Act” (WHaPA). The WHaPA would override the tremendous success of protecting women’s health and limiting abortion that we have seen in the states. Not since the radical “Freedom of Choice Act,” supported by President Obama, have we seen a bill that is so anti-mother and child.

An analysis by the Charlotte Lozier Institute found that that S. 1696 would turn back the clock on such pro-life gains as 20-week laws, conscience protections, bans on sex discrimination abortions, sonogram and fetal heartbeat requirements, and prohibitions on taxpayer funding of abortion and it would also eliminate regulations of abortionists like Philadelphia butcher Kermit Gosnell. The bill is so radical that only two Senate sponsors even bothered showing up for the hearing, while pro-life Senators were well represented. This bill is quite obviously a desperate cry from those who profit off of the misery of abortion, yet it should be taken as a serious threat to life everywhere.

Later that same week, Senate Democratic Leadership rushed to the Senate floor a vote on legislation introduced by Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) that was supposedly an answer to the Supreme Court ruling on Hobby Lobby. The bill, S. 2578, the Protect Women’s Health From Corporate Interference Act, was more than a simple response though – it was an outright attack on both the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and it would give the government the power to define conscience.

Pro-life Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) described the Senate Democrats’ bill to limit religious liberty as one that “targets religious freedom as the problem. It treats certain religious beliefs as simply unworthy of recognition and religious exercise in general as a second- or even a third-rate value.” The bill failed to gain the 60 votes it needed to proceed, but it is a good warning how fragile our religious freedom is. As President Ronald Reagan once said “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

July 8, 2014 By Scott Zipperle Leave a Comment

March for Life Files Lawsuit Against HHS Mandate

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 8, 2014

CONTACT: Ann Conant

March for Life Education and Defense Fund

202.234.3300

annconant@marchforlife.org

* * MEDIA ADVISORY * *

March for Life Files Lawsuit Against HHS Mandate

WASHINGTON – The March for Life Education and Defense Fund filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the Obama administration’s HHS mandate through the legal firm, Alliance Defending Freedom. The March for Life is a non-profit, non-sectarian organization dedicated to protecting nascent human life from the moment of fertilization/conception, most notably through its annual march every January in the nation’s capital. This lawsuit is the latest case by a non-profit organization to challenge the mandate since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against it last month on behalf of two for-profit family businesses in Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Burwell and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores.

The mandate forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy financial penalties through the IRS.

March for Life President had this to say about the case: “The March for Life Education and Defense Fund was founded to protect nascent life in the womb. Our organization must be free to operate according to this belief. The government should not be allowed to force us to pay for insurance coverage that covers drugs and devices that can cause an abortion.”

For further information, please contact Ann Conant with March for Life at 202.234.3300.