March for Life

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ): Of 112 Obamacare Plans for Congress and Staff, 103 are Pro-Abortion

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Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ): Of 112 Obamacare Plans for Congress and Staff, 103 are Pro-Abortion

From a friend on the Hill:

Pro-life Groups:

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) has issued a press statement (pasted below) pointing out yet another example of how insurance plans offered on Obamacare exchanges violate the principles of the Hyde amendment.   In this case, the administration is also violating the Smith amendment with regard to insurance offered to federal employees. 

As Members of Congress and congressional staff approach the December 9th deadline to select an insurance plan offered through the D.C. Obamacare exchange (D.C. Health Link), it has become evident that 103 of the 112 plans offered INCLUDE elective abortion.  Just nine plans exclude elective abortion. 

 

New Jersey’s Fourth Congressional District

Co-Chair of Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                  Contact: Jeff Sagnip (202) 225-3765

Dec. 3, 2013                                                       http://chrissmith.house.gov

 

 Of 112 Obamacare Plans for Congress and Staff, 103 are Pro-Abortion

Washington, D.C.—With a December 9th deadline for Members of Congress and congressional staff  to sign up for Obamacare health insurance, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04) released new evidence of President Obama violating pro-life laws and providing taxpayer funding for insurance plans that include abortion on demand.

            “In the run-up to passage of Obamacare, Americans were repeatedly told and reassured by President Obama himself, including in a speech to a joint session of Congress in October 2009, that ‘under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion.’  Obama even issued the infamous Executive Order that claimed, ‘the Act maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to newly created health insurance exchanges,’” said Smith.

 “Once again we see those promises ring hollow—what the President said simply isn’t true today.  In the most recent example, 103 of the 112 insurance plans that Members of Congress and congressional staff are being directed to INCLUDE ELECTIVE ABORTION coverage. Only nine plans offered exclude elective abortion,” Smith continued. (Click here to view flyer regarding the nine plans.)

Congressional employees have until just Dec. 9, 2013 to sign up for an employer-sponsored insurance plan on the Obamacare exchange offered in the District of Columbia (DC Health Link). Doubtlessly many congressional staff will—knowingly or unknowingly—sign up for these abortion plans marking a distinct departure from the Smith Amendment, a longstanding law prohibiting abortion coverage in plans provided to federal employees.

The amendment offered by Chris Smith three decades ago to ban abortion funding in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Programs is still current law. Like the Hyde Amendment, the Smith Amendment prohibits the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) from funding or even engaging in administrative activities in connection with any plan that includes abortion. However, the Obama Administration is now violating the Smith amendment since OPM has begun to administer a system for Members of Congress and their staff to obtain taxpayer-subsidized insurance coverage that pays for the destruction of innocent unborn children.

            “Only in response to public pressure did D.C. Health Link release a FAQ explaining how to decipher which plans exclude elective abortion coverage. To date, Secretary Sebelius has failed to provide any information about abortion coverage in plans sold in dozens of states on the Federally Facilitated Marketplace– even after promising to do so over a month ago,” said Smith.

            “This failure to disclose is a problem indicative of Obamacare plans nationwide and is why I have introduced the ‘Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act’ (H.R. 3279), a bill that requires information regarding either inclusion or exclusion of abortion coverage as well as the existence of an abortion surcharge to be ‘prominently displayed.’ To rid Obamacare of its massive expansion of abortion-on-demand facilitation and funding, I have also introduced the No Taxpayers Funding for Abortion Act, (H.R. 7),” Smith continued.

“Abortion isn’t health care — it kills babies and harms women. We live in an age of ultrasound imaging — the ultimate window to the womb and the child who resides there. We are in the midst of a fetal health care revolution, an explosion of benign interventions designed to diagnose, treat and cure the youngest patients,” said Smith.

“Once again it is clear that Obamacare’s abortion mandate violates federal law and makes taxpayers complicit in the culture of death. This is not reform,” said Smith.

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49 Days of Life: Giving Tuesday, Gaining the Future

 

This is an actual headline, from Time Magazine yesterday: “Calm Black Friday: Only 1 Death, 15 Injuries Attributed to Big Shopping Day.”  As we’ve all watched over the past decades,  consumerism gone wild has led to arguments, fights, stampedes, and tragically, many deaths on the Friday after Thanksgiving, when the drive to buy a discounted DVD player or some other consumer good seems to trump acting out of common sense and treating people with dignity.    

With the arrival of the Internet, Cyber Monday emerged so that we are still able to satiate our drive for “stuff,” but from the comfort of our couch.  Or, transport yourself from the office to the virtual world (during a lunch break, of course) where no item is unattainable, without the pushing and shoving. 

While I am certainly no stranger to shopping, and love picking out the perfect gift for family members and friends, let’s be honest, most of the items we purchase don’t last, or really aren’t that worthwhile.  However, a new movement has arisen, and it’s going on right now – “Giving Tuesday.”  From their website:

This year help us create #GivingTuesday.  A new day for giving back.  On Tuesday December 3, 2013, global charities, families, businesses, community centers, students and more will come together to create #GivingTuesday.

It’s a simple idea.  Just find a way for your family, your community, your company or your organization to come together to give something more.  Then tell everyone you can about how you are giving.  Be a part of a national celebration of our great tradition of generosity.

Thankfully, there are so many ways in which we can invest our money to help the cause of the most valuable gift we’ve all received: life. 

Pregnancy resource centers are on the front line of caring for women who are faced with an unexpected pregnancy.  Personally, I have been blessed to volunteer at the Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center in Washington, D.C, and have witnessed the loving and supportive care of the staff and counselors.  Also, in D.C., the Northwest Center seeks “to promote the dignity of women and a respect for all human life…by offering the loving support and comprehensive aid necessary to enable all women to continue their pregnancies, deliver healthy babies, and adequately care for themselves and their children.”

Thousands of women have chosen life for their sons and daughters due to the love and compassion of pregnancy resource center counselors across the Nation.  When we give our resources to these organizations, we are playing a small part in helping women choose life.  Who knows who you might impact?  Heartbeat International and CareNet are the parent organizations for most centers, and the innovative Online for Life partners with many centers, using technology to connect with women.  By supporting any of the aforementioned organizations, or your local pregnancy resource center, on this #GivingTuesday (or any day!), you are investing in the future, and helping to give the most precious gift: life.

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50 Days of Life: Pro-life Cyber Monday Ideas

Want to do your Christmas shopping while also supporting the pro-life movement?  Try some of these great deals.

Here is some great reading:

Abuse of Discretion: The Inside Story of Roe v. Wade by Clark Forsythe

 

Breaking Through: Catholic Women Speak for Themselves by Helen Alvare

 

Courageous: Students Abolishing Abortion in this Lifetime by Kristan Hawkins

 

40 Days for Life: Discover What God Has Done…Imagine What He Can Do by David Beriet

 

Planned Bullyhood: The Truth Behind the Headlines about the Planned Parenthood Funding Battle with Susan G. Komen for the Cure by Karen Handel

 

Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader’s Eye-Opening Journey across the Life Line by Abby Johnson

 

Or maybe you want to find some pro-life clothing while supporting a pro-life ministry such as Stand True or Crossroads Pro-life.

 

Lastly why not give directly to a local pregnancy care center in someone’s name?  Many can be found through Care-net, Heartbeat International or your local listings.

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55 Days of Life: Around the Movement, Saving Lives

What am I thankful for this year?  That I have so many good and brilliant allies in the pro-life movement. Here is just a small sampling of some of the great work being done around the country on the pro-life front.

Alliance Defending Freedom and Family Research Council have a new poll out regarding conscience. It found that 59 percent of likely voters “oppose the mandate requiring the coverage of preventive care services for women which includes all FDA approved contraceptives, including drugs that can destroy a human embryo, and sterilization services without a direct cost to the patient.”

 

National Right to Life has all you need to know on fetal pain

 

Students for Life is encouraging students to start their own pro-life group on campuses

 

Another successful 40 Days for Life prayer campaign!

 

Focus on the Family has a great program encouraging and supporting adoption, check it out here.

 

Are you a college student and looking to walk across America to educate people on the life issue? Check out Crossroads

 

New report from the Charlotte Lozier Institute shows growing preference for ethical, non-embryonic stem cell research.

 

Priests for Life is offering up a “pro-life prayer for Thanksgiving.”

 

For interesting takes on the culture, both pro-life and pro-death, Jill Stanek’s blog is a must read.

 

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56 Days of Life: #Plan B from Outer Space

If you have not seen the videos from Students for Life exposing the nonchalance of some pharmacists over distributing Plan B to minors, it is a horrendous condemnation of our culture. 

In the “Expose Plan B” campaign which depicts an older man (played by Erik Whittington, Director of Rock for Life) buying Plan B and asking the pharmacists and store clerks how to insert the drug into his girlfriend’s drink because she doesn’t want to take it. In other scenes, his girlfriend, a minor (played by Ashton, a 15 year old volunteer with SFLA), is with him and saying she doesn’t want to take it but he buys and says he will make her take it – all in front of the store employees.

To help raise awareness of the dangers of the Obama Administrations plan allowing the distribution of Plan B to minors Students for Life is having a Tweetarama called “Expose #PlanB Tweetfest.”

Is Plan B, which can act as an abortifacient, dangerous to minor girls?  Actually it has been proven dangerous to women of all ages.  When the decision to allow Plan B over the counter for adults was first being discussed, the Family Research Council highlighted how Plan B given without a doctor’s assistance could lead to dangerous complications for women taking the drug:

Birth control pills, which are essentially a lower dose regimen of Plan B, require a prescription. They are not available OTC. They require an appointment with a licensed clinician to determine contraindications, obtain a prescription, and provide for medical oversight throughout the usage period.

 

“Birth control pills are available by prescription only for sound medicalreasons: They can cause significant or life-threatening conditions such as blood clots and heart attacks. Birth control pills are contraindicated for women with diabetes, liver problems, heart disease, breast cancer, deep vein thrombosis, and for women who smoke and are over 35. A medical exam is necessary to ensure that none of these contraindications exists. For example, according to the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 1.85 million women of reproductive age (18-44) have diabetes; approximately 500,000 do not know that they have the disease.”

 

In addition, Plan B has been linked by the World Health Organization as increasing the risks of an ectopic pregnancy.  And while the other side likes to say how Plan B is supposed to help reduce abortions, both STD rates and abortions have skyrocketed in places that have deregulated the drug.  And as for it being “emergency” contraception, a study earlier this year exposed that lie when it found that here in the U.S., STD rates have shot up since Plan B has been approved for over the counter use, and that more and more women seem to be using it as their MAIN source of contraception.

 

What Students for Life is valiantly doing is exposing the predatory risks of over the counter Plan B.  As Bethany Mandel points out in Commentary Magazine, President Obama’s maneuvering has led to the possibilities of more young girls being sacrificed at the altar of the pro-abortion movement:

 

Previously, any teen under the age of 17 had to get a prescription to obtain the drug, which, taken up to 72 hours after intercourse, greatly lowers the likelihood of unwanted pregnancy. The reasoning behind the previous ruling was the hope that medical professionals would ensure that 14-year olds having intercourse were doing so with due care and legally (i.e. not as victims of statutory or forcible rape). According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), a left-leaning policy organization with strong ties to Planned Parenthood:

 

Concerns about statutory rape are particularly acute in regard to the youngest adolescents. Although relatively small proportions of 13-14-year-olds have had intercourse, those who become sexually active at an early age are especially likely to have experienced coercive sex: Seventy-four percent of women who had intercourse before age 14 and 60% of those who had sex before age 15 report having had a forced sexual experience. As policymakers and the public have become increasingly aware that the sexual partners of minor adolescent women are often not adolescents themselves but men 3-6 years older, concern has grown that protective measures, in the form of increasing enforcement of statutory rape laws, are necessary to guard these young women from abuse and exploitation.

 

With the Obama administration’s decision to provide access to Plan B to these young women, one outside barrier between a child and victimization has disappeared. 

 

Help join Students for Life to Expose #PlanB.

 

*Jeanne Monahan, President of the March for Life, has been vocal on this issue throughout the past year:

  • Interview with Brian Williams on NBC’s Nightly News.
  • Washington Post article, “Morning-after pill ruling reanimates debate.”
  • Google HangOut hosted by HuffPostLive.