I note that Molly Moorhead of PolitiFact.com (a leading vendor of ever-more pretentious, ever-more tendentious “fact checking”) has imposed on the National Right to Life press release a construction that goes well beyond the plain language of the release — and then she declared her own construction, attributed to NRLC, to be “mostly false.” Nice work if you can get it.

Moorhead wrote, “The National Right to Life Committee headline suggested that fetuses were being screened for security at the White House gate.” She also wrote, “But is the Right to Life Committee correct . . . In other words, does a pregnant woman count as two at the White House?” [italics added for emphasis] Yet these phrases, attributed to NRLC, appear nowhere in the NRLC statement, nor are they implied, nor do they reflect anything I said (or thought) during the short interview that Moorhead conducted with me. Our release says what it says, not what Moorhead imagines we “suggested.” You can read the entire NRLC release here.

How can it be “mostly false” for us to say that the White House is collecting the data on the “baby that has not yet been born” (the actual White House term) “for security purposes” (our term), when the White House newsletter itself says, “We have received a number of calls regarding how to enter security information for a baby that has not yet been born,” then goes on to instruct, “The baby’s security information should be entered as follows . . .,” and then requests various specifics, including the unborn baby’s sex when known. [italics added for emphasis] Since the White House twice said that the information on the baby is “security information,” how can it be false to say it is information “for . . . security purposes”?

We didn’t say that the White House Visitors office counted a pregnant visitor as two people, but rather, made the point that the White House recognizes the “baby” as a family member prior to birth, “for purposes of providing security within the White House,” but not for purposes of establishing abortion policy for the District of Columbia, an exclusively federal jurisdiction. Moorhead apparently went to all of that re-write work as part of a studied effort to miss our point. I wonder why?

While we said nothing whatever to suggest that “fetuses were being screened for security at the White House gate” (one of Malloy’s imaginative extrapolations, attributed to us), we were accurate in asserting that the bill mentioned in our release (H.R. 3803) would, as we understand it, “provide for the security of the unborn child immediately outside of the White House gates, as well as inside.” The White House is entirely within the District of Columbia, see?

Finally, Moorhead conflates NRLC’s statement with entirely independent commentaries on the White House newsletter by the Washington Times and Creative Minority Report. As a rhetorical tactic this is too shoddy to require any further commentary. As journalism . . . well, it is not journalism.

By NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson
and NRLC Senior Legislative Counsel Susan T. Muskett, J.D.

WASHINGTON (March 14, 2012) — The Obama Administration has taken another step in what amounts to a four-year plan to make abortion-covering health insurance, subsidized by the federal government, commonly available in the United States.

The latest action came on March 12, when the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a lengthy regulation that spells out how some of the components of the massive 2010 Obama health care law (“ObamaCare”) will be implemented.

The new rule — consuming 644 pages, including HHS’s commentary — is concerned mainly with the “exchanges,” which are the government-operated health insurance markets that must be established in every state by January 1, 2014.  While states may retain responsibility for administering the exchanges, they must do so according to the detailed blueprints provided in the federal law and in federal regulations, including the new rule.

One part of the ObamaCare law establishes a big new program to provide federal subsidies for tens of millions of American families whose household income is 400 percent or less of the federal poverty level ($92,000 for a family of four).  (Only health plans that join the exchanges will be eligible to sign up federally subsidized clients, which provides a strong incentive for health plans to enlist in the exchanges.)  These federal subsidies can be used to purchase health plans that cover all abortions.  This is one of the abortion-expanding aspects of ObamaCare that caused NRLC to strongly oppose the legislation when it was under consideration in Congress in 2009 and 2010.

OBAMA ASSURANCES HOLLOW

During the 2009-2010 congressional debate, President Obama repeatedly told the American people that he was not seeking federal funding of abortion in his healthcare legislation.  For example, in a speech to a joint session of Congress on September 9, 2009, the president claimed that “under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion.”  NRLC repeatedly pointed out that such claims were flatly inconsistent with the actual legislative proposals that Obama was pushing — indeed, the president played a key role in removing House-approved language (the Stupak-Pitts Amendment) that would have prevented subsidies for elective abortions under any component of the book-thick health-care legislation.

In March, 2010, Obama persuaded a small group of Democrat House members to support the bill — and to provide the margin needed for enactment — by signing an executive order that he touted as a firewall against federal funding of abortion.  In reality, the executive order was political theatre, nearly devoid of substance.  In a March 21, 2010 statement, NRLC warned that the executive order was “issued for political effect” and “does not correct any of the serious pro-abortion provisions in the bill,” adding that “a lawmaker who votes for this bill is voting to require federal agencies to subsidize and administer health plans that will pay for elective abortion, and voting to undermine longstanding pro-life policies in other ways as well.”

Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), the nation’s largest abortion provider, also dismissed the executive order as “a symbolic gesture” (USA Today, March 25, 2010), as she welcomed enactment of the ObamaCare law.

During 2011, the Obama White House issued formal veto threats on two bills (the Protect Life Act and the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act), both approved by the House of Representatives, that would restore effective barriers to federal subsidies for abortion.

NEW RULE SPELLS OUT SOME DETAILS

The new rule spells out some, but by no means all, of the details on how abortion coverage will be paid for in the developing exchange system.

Under the rule, a health plan that covers all abortions may participate in an exchange unless a state enacts a law that explicitly prohibits such coverage (known as an “opt out” law).  If a health plan covers abortion, the rule forbids the plan from calling attention to that fact in any of its advertising or explanatory materials.  The disclosure of abortion coverage can be provided “only as part of the summary of benefits and coverage explanation, at the time of enrollment.”   This provision seems designed for no other purpose than to ensure that many people who would not deliberately sign up for abortion-covering plans will do so inadvertently, because of the federally enforced gag rule.

Once a person is enrolled in an abortion-covering plan, he or she will be required to pay a defined monthly charge for the abortion coverage, dubbed the “abortion surcharge” by critics.  This abortion surcharge is not optional — every enrollee in the plan must pay it, including families that have moral objections to abortion and/or that contain no females of reproductive age.

Some media stories have reported that the “abortion surcharge” will be $1 per month, but in fact, the law and rule say something quite different — they say that the surcharge must not be “less than one dollar per enrollee, per month.”  The surcharge could be a good deal more than $1, depending on how many abortions are paid for and how much they cost.

Neither the law nor the rule contain any limitations on reasons for which abortions are sought or how late in pregnancy they occur.

HHS has so far avoided spelling out in any detail how the abortion surcharge payments will be made.  From the pro-life perspective, the exact method of collecting the payments is not very important.  The most important fact is that the federal government will be helping tens of millions of Americans purchase exchange-participating health plans, many of which will cover abortion on demand.  When the government pays for health insurance, it pays for what the insurance pays for.  The abortion surcharge is merely a bookkeeping device that is intended to obscure the reality that the federal government will be purchasing abortion-on-demand insurance — which is a sharp departure from decades of previous federal policy under the Hyde Amendment, the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, and other federal programs.

STATE OPT-OUT LAWS

The ObamaCare law specifies, and the rule repeats, that a state may enact an “opt out” law that prohibits coverage of abortion in the health plans that participate in the exchange in that state.  So far, 15 states have enacted variations on such laws, and other state legislatures are considering such legislation.

However, while enactment of state “opt out” laws is important, they do not reach the heart of the problem.  A state legislature may forbid coverage of abortion in the exchange-participating health plans in that state –but under ObamaCare, the taxpayers who live in that state may not “opt out” of subsidizing the abortion coverage for other Americans, perhaps numbering tens of millions, who live in other states that do not enact opt-out laws.

Moreover, the ObamaCare law provides additional mechanisms by which the Obama Administration will be able to expand abortion-covering insurance in the future, step by step.

For example, the ObamaCare law provides that a different federal agency, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), will offer so-called “multi-state” health plans.  Eventually, each “multi-state plan” will be offered throughout the country.  The law provides that one such federal plan will have limitations on abortion coverage, at least initially, but it leaves the door open to one or more additional federal plans covering abortion on demand.

In the new rule, HHS does not reveal how the OPM-administered “multi-state” plans will handle abortion coverage.  The HHS commentary merely says that such issues “will be described in future rulemaking published by OPM.”  Presumably, the Obama Administration prefers to reveal the answers to such questions after the November presidential election.

FUTURE MANDATES POSSIBLE

The HHS rule released on March 12 is entirely separate and distinct from the controversy that has erupted around another component of ObamaCare, which is a provision allowing HHS to mandate that virtually all health plans cover, without copayments, any medical service that the Secretary of HHS places on a list of “preventive services.”  Earlier this year, the Administration ignited a national controversy by placing all FDA-approved contraceptive methods and sterilization on the mandatory preventive services list.  NRLC has warned that if President Obama is re-elected, his administration could expand the “preventive services” list to include all abortions.  The effect of such a mandate would be that health plans in general — whether federally subsidized or not — would be required to cover abortion on demand without copayments.  However, enactment of a properly drafted “opt out” law should shield the exchange-participating plans in a given state from any such mandate.

While some of the details of the Obama Administration’s abortion-expanding campaign remain to be revealed, the new rule is only the latest evidence that pro-life objections to ObamaCare were well founded, and that only repeal and replacement of the ObamaCare law will prevent a vast, federally dictated expansion of abortion access in the United States.

RESOURCES

Additional documentation on the abortion-expanding components of ObamaCare can be found on the NRLC website at http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/index.html, including testimony presented by NRLC to a U.S. House subcommittee in February, 2011 (http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/ProtectLifeActDouglasJohnsonTestimony.pdf).

SB 484 ensures Virginia women will be given full range of information before abortion

 WASHINGTON – Today, the National Right to Life Committee, the federation of 50 state right-to-life affiliates and more than 3,000 local chapters, applauded Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and the Virginia state legislature for enactment of SB 484, the ultrasound bill which ensures that women in the Commonwealth are given the full range of information available before undergoing an abortion procedure.  Governor McDonnell signed the bill into law today.

 “We commend Governor McDonnell and the dedicated men and women in the Virginia legislature for seeing this protective legislation enacted into law,” said Carol Tobias, National Right to Life president. “We also applaud the Virginia Society for Human Life for making this law a top priority and their tireless efforts to protect and empower the women of Virginia.”

The new ultrasound law provides mothers an opportunity to view real-time images of their unborn children, and then provides an appropriate waiting period before rushing her through an abortion. The final version of the bill includes language, urged by Governor McDonnell, which clarifies that only an abdominal ultrasound is necessary to meet the requirements of the law.

During the legislative debate, opponents vilified the ultrasound procedure as “invasive,” even though the National Abortion Federation reports that ultrasounds are already in common use by abortionists to determine the gestational age of the unborn child.  However, the ultrasound screen is often hidden from the mother’s view.

“This basic medical information should be provided to women, but because a life-affirming choice takes business away from the abortionist, they will often hide all the facts of abortion and the child’s development from mothers,” observed Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., National Right to Life director of state legislation. “The outrageous misinformation propagated during the debate on this ultrasound bill exposed the abortion industry’s concern for its financial bottom line at the cost of women’s well-being. The truth is, the abortion industry is afraid to let women simply see the image of their own child.”

WASHINGTON – The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the national federation of state right-to-life organizations, said today that it would continue to challenge the Obama Administration’s authority to mandate that virtually all employers pay for services they regard as morally objectionable, both in Congress and through political action.

The U.S. Senate today rejected an initial attempt to prevent the Obama Administration from forcing employers to provide h­­ealth insurance that covers drugs or procedures to which they are morally opposed. By a vote of 51-48, the Senate tabled (killed) an amendment offered by pro-life Senator Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and strongly supported by NRLC. The text of the Blunt Amendment is taken from an NRLC-endorsed bill, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (S. 1467, H.R. 1179). It would amend the Obama health care law (“ObamaCare”) to prevent the use of that law to issue regulatory mandates that violate the religious or moral convictions of those who purchase or provide health insurance.

The Blunt legislation does not affect any federal law other than ObamaCare, nor does it apply to state laws. In addition, the legislation does not allow any insurer to “discriminate against individuals because of their age, disability, or expected length of life.”

The Obama Administration has issued an initial mandate that requires nearly all employers to purchase plans that cover all FDA-approved methods of birth control. NRLC has pointed out that the same authority could be employed by the Administration in the future to order virtually all health plans to cover all abortions.

The focus now shifts to the House, where the same legislation, introduced as H.R. 1179 by Congressman Jeff Fortenberry (R-Ne.), currently has 220 cosponsors (more than half of all House members). In addition, numerous lawsuits have been filed by religiously affiliated employers, challenging the Obama mandate as a violation of constitutional rights and of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

“National Right to Life will continue to challenge the Obama Administration’s abortion-expansionist agenda on Capitol Hill, and we will encourage millions of like-minded Americans to remember this issue when they cast their ballots in November,” said Carol Tobias, National Right to Life president.

WASHINGTON – Late this afternoon, the Georgia House of Representatives voted 102-65 to pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which protects unborn children capable of feeling pain. The bill will now go to the Georgia Senate for consideration.

“We applaud the Georgia House of Representatives for taking this important step for pain-capable children,” said Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., director of state legislation for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC). “The state has a vested interest in protecting unborn children who can feel pain from the violence of abortion.”

The model Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, drafted by the National Right to Life Committee’s state legislation department, protects the life of the unborn child at the point that they are capable of feeling pain except when the mother “has a condition which so complicates her medical condition as to necessitate the abortion of her pregnancy to avert death or to avert serious risk of substantial or irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function or…it is necessary to preserve the life of an unborn child.” Further documentation and links to the scientific studies can be found at: www.doctorsonfetalpain.com.

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a priority of the National Right to Life Committee, has been passed in five states and is currently being debated across the country. The legislation has also been introduced in Congress with the intent to protect unborn children in the District of Columbia who are able to feel pain during an abortion.

“Medical science has changed over the last forty years,” said Balch “Accordingly, elected officials across the country are looking at new medical advances and recognizing that our laws need to step into the future as we continue to learn more about the development of the unborn child.”

Urge the U.S. Senate to protect religious freedom next week!
Call Now — U.S. senators to vote next week on pro-life Blunt Amendment! 

Take Action!

WASHINGTON — Phone calls to U.S. senators are urgently needed in support of a vital pro-life amendment that is likely to be voted on around February 28, or within a few days thereafter.  Please click on the “Take Action” link above, then enter your zip code in the “Call Now” box, and you will be shown the correct numbers to call and suggested points to make during your call.

The amendment has been offered by pro-life Senator Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and is strongly supported by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC).  The text of the Blunt Amendment is taken from an NRLC-endorsed bill, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (S. 1467, H.R. 1179).  It would amend the Obama health care law (“ObamaCare”) to prevent the imposition of regulatory mandates that violate the religious or moral convictions of those who purchase or provide health insurance, such as the recent decree that virtually all employers — including religiously affiliated hospitals and schools — must purchase health insurance plans that cover all government-approved methods of birth control.

When President Obama’s health care legislation was under consideration in the Senate in 2009, NRLC warned that a provision dealing with “preventive health services” would empower the Secretary of Health and Human Services to mandate coverage of any medical service, including abortion, merely by adding the service to an expandable list.  Predictably, the Administration issued a decree in August, 2011, covering all FDA-approved birth control methods – a mandate that, unless overturned, will produce an irreconcilable conflict between conscience and the coercive force of government for many employers.  In recent months, the Administration’s “birth-control mandate” has been strongly characterized as an attack on fundamental religious liberties by the U.S. Catholic bishops, the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Association of Evangelicals, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and the leaders of many other religious bodies.

But this is not a debate only about the specific parameters of the birth-control mandate.  Exactly the same statutory authority could be used by the Administration — as early as next year — to mandate that virtually all health plans pay for elective abortion on demand.

The Blunt Amendment goes to the heart of the problem by amending the ObamaCare law itself, to prevent provisions of the law from being used as a basis for regulatory mandates that violate the religious or moral convictions of those who purchase or provide health insurance.

PLEASE CALL TODAY!

Please click on the “Take Action” link above.  Enter your zip code in the “Call Now” box, and you will be shown the correct phone numbers to call for your two U.S. senators.  You will be shown suggested comments that you can make to the staff person who takes the call.  You’ll also be invited to use the simple “Your Feedback” tool to send NRLC a short email, reporting on how your call went, if you wish to do so.

To view a letter sent by NRLC to senators, which provides more details on this issue, click here.  To view additional information regarding the Obama Administration’s attacks on pro-life health care providers, click here.

February 14, 2012
                                                       RE: The District of Columbia Pain-Capable
                                                       Unborn Child Protection Act (S. 2103)

Dear Senator:

The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the nationwide federation of state right-to-life organizations, urges you to cosponsor the District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (S. 2103).

This vital legislation, which is a top priority for NRLC during 2012, was introduced on February 13 by Senator Mike Lee. (The House companion bill, H.R. 3803, was introduced on January 23 by Congressman Trent Franks.) The bill contains legislative findings and operative language very similar to bills already enacted in five states during 2010 and 2011: Nebraska, Kansas, Idaho, Oklahoma, and Alabama. None of these laws have faced any serious legal challenge to date.

Like those state laws, S. 2103 contains findings of fact regarding the medical evidence that unborn children experience pain at least by 20 weeks after fertilization (which is 22 weeks in the “LMP” system, or about the start of the sixth month), and prohibits abortion after that point, except when an acute physical condition endangers the life of the mother.

Some of the extensive evidence that unborn children have the capacity to experience pain, at least by 20 weeks, is available on the NRLC website at http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/Fetal_Pain/index.html

Additional state legislatures will be taking up similar legislation during the months ahead. However, there is one substantial jurisdiction over which the U.S. Constitution places legislative responsibility solely on the shoulders of the Congress: The District of Columbia. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution dictates unequivocally that Congress shall “exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District . . .”

Currently, in our nation’s capital, unborn children may legally be killed at any point up to birth, for any reason. Abortions are advertised, and performed, in the sixth month and later. This means that unborn children who are capable of experiencing excruciating pain are killed every day – most often, by a method in which arms and legs are twisted off by brute manual force, as the abortionist guides his forceps using an ultrasound image. A medical illustration of this common method (“D&E”) is posted here.

Another advertised method, in the seventh month and later, involves thrusting a needle into the unborn child’s heart and injecting a lethal substance.

Under the Constitution, only the Congress – and, if he would, the President – have the responsibility for putting an end to these brutal practices. The National Right to Life Committee urges you to join the campaign to protect pain-capable unborn children in the nation’s capital, by adding your name as a cosponsor of S. 2103 (contact:Ryan_McCoy@lee.senate.gov), and by working for its expeditious enactment.
Respectfully,

Douglas Johnson
Legislative Director
National Right to Life Committee (NRLC)

February 14, 2012

                                             RE: Senator Blunt’s Respect for Rights of Conscience amendment

Dear Senator:

The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the nationwide federation of state right-to-life organizations, strongly supports Senator Blunt’s amendment (No. 1520) to the pending transportation bill, and intends to include any roll call on the Blunt amendment in the NRLC scorecard of key pro-life issues for the 112th Congress.

The text of the amendment is taken directly from the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (S. 1467). It would amend the Obama health care law (“ObamaCare”) to prevent the imposition of regulatory mandates that violate the religious or moral convictions of those who purchase or provide health insurance.

When the health care legislation was pending in the Senate in 2009, NRLC warned that the “preventive health services” provision would empower the Secretary of Health and Human Services to mandate coverage of any medical service, including abortion, merely by adding the service to a fluid list. Predictably, the Administration has begun with a decree covering all FDA-approved birth control methods – a mandate that, unless overturned, will produce an irreconcilable conflict between conscience and the coercive force of government for many employers. But this is not a debate only about the specific parameters of the birth-control mandate. Exactly the same statutory authority could be used by the Secretary, next year or the year after that, to mandate that all health plans pay for elective abortion on demand.

This concern is underscored by the rationale that the Administration offered last week as part of its so-called “accommodation,” under which certain insurers will be directly required to offer coverage of birth control methods without copayments, while forbidden to charge anything extra for this option. The White House argued that the expanded use of birth control will save any health plan money, and therefore, nobody is really paying for it. The same twisted logic could be employed to justify the future abortion mandate: By ordering health plans to cover elective abortion, health plans would save the much higher costs of prenatal care, childbirth, and care for the baby.

(It is sometimes asserted that the ObamaCare law contains language prohibiting the federal government from mandating that health plans cover abortions. In reality, the law prevents the Secretary of HHS from including abortion in a list of federally mandated “essential health benefits,” but those provisions are entirely separate and distinct from the “preventive services” authority that the Administration has employed as the basis for the birth control mandate, and would employ for a future abortion mandate.)

The Blunt amendment goes to the heart of the problem by amending the ObamaCare law itself, to prevent provisions of the law from being used as a basis for regulatory mandates that violate the religious or moral convictions of those who purchase or provide health insurance. A vote against this amendment is, in effect, a vote to allow just such mandates. NRLC strongly urges your support for this vital pro-life amendment.
Respectfully,

                                       
Douglas Johnson                                                                     Susan T. Muskett, J.D.
Legislative Director                                                                 Senior Legislative Counsel

WASHINGTON– In response to criticism of its recent regulation requiring coverage of FDA-approved birth control drugs and devices, the White House today announced a purported “compromise” under which insurance plans will be required to provide the coverage in all plans, without charging anything additional for it.

The Administration position is that insurers can be required to provide the coverage for “free” because birth control is less expensive than childbirth.  The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the national federation of right-to-life organizations, issued the following comment, any part of which may be attributed to NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson:

“President Obama today promulgated a scam that, if he is re-elected, will allow him to mandate that every health plan in America cover abortion on demand,” said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson.  “The same twisted logic will be applied:  By ordering health plans to cover elective abortion, health plans would save the much higher costs of prenatal care, childbirth, and care for the baby — and under the Obama scam, if a procedure saves money, then that means that you’re not really paying for it when the government mandates it.”

By this form of doublespeak, one could say that the federal Medicaid program was not really “funding abortion” when it paid for 300,000 abortions a year (prior to adoption of the Hyde Amendment in 1976), because after all, every abortion that the government paid for also saved the government money.

The Obama “you must pay, but nobody pays” scam might also be applied to other “cost-cutting” mandates.  Perhaps every health plan will be mandated to cover physician-assisted suicide, in states in which assisted suicide is legal.  After all, each suicide would result in a net savings to the plan, and under the Obama scam, that means it is really free and nobody really pays for it.

Some journalists have wrongly reported that the ObamaCare law contains language prohibiting the federal government from mandating that health plans cover abortions.  This is erroneous.  The law prevents the Secretary of Health and Human Services from including abortion in a list of federally mandated “essential health benefits.”  But the birth control mandate is based on an entirely different provision of the law, which allows the Secretary to mandate that all health plans cover any service that the Secretary places on a list of “preventive” services.  There is nothing in the law to prevent the Secretary from placing abortion, assisted suicide, or any other additional services on the preventive services list, nor does the Secretary require the agreement of any other authority in the government to do so — except, perhaps, the president.

At his press conference today, President Obama suggested that the birth-control mandate was recommended by “the nation’s leading medical experts.”  The actual make up of the handpicked panel that made the birth control recommendations was reported by Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review Online here (http://nrlc.co/wlEyK4).

NRLC supports enactment of the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (S. 1467, H.R. 1179)(http://nrlc.co/zKiSSV), which would allow health providers to decline to provide abortions or other specific medical services on the basis of religious belief or moral convictions.