NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE RESPONDS TO
KOMEN DECISION REGARDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD

WASHINGTON – Succumbing to pressure from the mainstream media and Planned Parenthood, Susan G. Komen for the Cure today announced Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates will remain eligible for grant funding. Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider, performing approximately 27% of all abortions annually in the United States.

The following statement may be attributed to National Right to Life President Carol Tobias:

Shortly after news broke earlier this week that Komen was withdrawing future grant funding to Planned Parenthood and its affiliates, the abortion giant and its allies began a shrill online campaign to bring Komen to its knees by bullying the organization into submission. 

Any decision to provide future grants approved for Planned Parenthood, which boasts a $1.1 billion budget, would be extremely and sadly misguided. Any grants to Planned Parenthood would be detrimental to women and their unborn children. Even in their own press statements, Planned Parenthood states that they refer for mammograms, an indication they don’t perform them.

Planned Parenthood is not in the business of fighting breast cancer, they’re in the business of performing abortions to the tune of more than 300,000 a year, which accounts for at least one-third of Planned Parenthood’s nongovernmental clinic income. In fact, Planned Parenthood has announced that all of their affiliates will be required to perform abortions.

 National Right to Life strongly urges Susan G. Komen for the Cure and all cancer research organizations to approve no future funding to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest chain of abortion clinics.  Right-to-life supporters do not want their donations for fighting cancer to go to organizations that perform abortions.

If you could not make it to the March for Life or any of the state and local event remembering the tragic Roe v. Wade decision, please text LIFE to 85944 to give a gift to National Right to Life today!

WASHINGTON – Today, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals lifted the preliminary injunction on the Texas Sonogram Law on the grounds that the plaintiff did not have a likelihood of winning their argument. The Texas Sonogram Law, that was passed last year with the support of National Right to Life’s affiliate, Texas Right to Life, ensures that abortionists display an ultrasound image of the unborn child for the mother to view before an abortion decision. Abortionists are further required to allow mothers to hear the child’s heartbeat, and provide information about the development of the unborn baby.  

 “This breakthrough decision from the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recognizes, in the words of the Court, ‘the physicians obligations to display the sonogram images’ of the unborn child before an abortion,” said Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., director of state legislation for National Right to Life. “In practice, an ultrasound law that does not require the ultrasound to be displayed can become almost meaningless because virtually every abortion facility will slip a waiver form into the stack of papers mothers are asked to sign.”

 In addition to Texas, both North Carolina and Oklahoma have also passed measures requiring an abortionist display an ultrasound image of the unborn child before an abortion. Both laws have been challenged.

 Writing the decision for the court, Chief Judge Edith Jones clearly laid out the responsibility of the abortion provider: “The woman seeking an abortion may elect not to receive these images, sounds, or explanations. This election does not obviate the physician’s obligations todisplay the sonogram images or make audible the heart auscultation; the woman may simply choose not to look or listen.”

 Added Balch, “We commend the work of Texas Right to Life for their hard work in ensuring that the abortionist must display the ultrasound image of the unborn child for the mother. Today, their tireless efforts have paid off, and we are so pleased by this success.”

WASHINGTON – The political arm of the nation’s largest pro-life organization, the National Right to Life PAC (NRL PAC), today joined with the Nebraska Right to Life Political Action Committee in announcing that both organizations will oppose Senator Ben Nelson (D) for re-election in November 2012 general election.

 Both National Right to Life and Nebraska Right to Life consider the vote on the so-called “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (PPACA) (“Obamacare”) to be an absolutely critical vote to the right-to-life movement.  As enacted into law, the Obama health care law contained multiple provisions authorizing subsidies for abortion, and also provisions that opened the doors to abortion-expanding administrative actions.  In addition, the law would lead to government-imposed rationing of lifesaving medical treatment.

“Ben Nelson was the deciding vote to make the Obama health care law the law of the land, and in the current Congress, Nelson has a 0% pro-life voting record,” said National Right to Life Executive Director David N. O’Steen, Ph.D. “Ben Nelson cannot win in Nebraska without pro-life support and he won’t have it. No pro-lifer should even consider supporting Ben Nelson for re-election.”

“Ben Nelson’s vote for the pro-abortion, pro-rationing Obama health care law was a total betrayal of pro-life principles and a total betrayal of pro-life voters who stood by him in the past,” added Julie Schmit-Albin, executive director of Nebraska Right to Life.  “Nebraska is a pro-life state and deserves better.”

Listen to remarks given by Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., and Steven Zielinski, M.D., J.D., at the 2011 National Right to Life Convention. Mary Spaulding Balch, NRLC’s State Legislative Director, was instrumental in crafting legislation that protects unborn children from abortion after they are capable of feeling pain. The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is now law in five states.

Steven Zielinski is a nationally recognized expert on the phenomena of pain and the unborn, and holds both medicine and law degree’s. He is the author of scholarly research on unborn pain and abortion, and served as an adviser to National Right to Life in crafting Nebraska’s 2010 Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

Listen to their remarks on the importance of unborn pain, its reality, and its impact on the abortion debate. Please share widely.

President Obama’s Record on Life 
(Flyer 8.5″ x 11″)

Where Do The Candidates Stand on Life?  
(Flyer 8.5″ x 11″)

¿Cuales son las posiciones de los candidatos sobre la vida? 
(Versión en español, 8.5″ x 11″)