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.

WASHINGTON – Citing a violation of First Amendment Rights, the Georgia State Supreme Court today struck the state’s 1994 law which classified as a felony anyone who “publicly advertises, offers or holds himself out as offering that he or she will intentionally and actively assist another person in the commission of suicide and commits any overt act to further that purpose.” The decision leaves Georgia with no protections against assisting suicide.

“Today’s ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court puts the lives of older people and those with disabilities in grave danger because it opens the door for the fringe advocates of doctor-prescribed death to openly advertise the practice in the state of Georgia,” said Burke Balch, J.D., director of National Right to Life’s Powell Center for Medical Ethics. “This ruling essentially says if you want to advertise helping people jump off a cliff, you can hang out your shingle in Georgia.”

At the heart of the ruling was a case involving four members of the Final Exit Network who were charged in February 2009 with the death of a 58-year-old cancer patient.  As a result of today’s ruling, the four will not face a criminal trial.

At present only Oregon and Washington State have legalized doctor-prescribed death. A Montana Supreme Court ruling in 2010 left the status of assisting suicide in that state ambiguous.  Other efforts to legalize the practice, which would put countless patients at risk, have been defeated in Maine, Hawaii, and Michigan among others.

“We call on the Georgia legislature to quickly remedy today’s ruling by enacting into statute legal protections against doctor-prescribed death and other forms of assisting suicide,”added Balch. “Failure to take swift action could result in the deaths of countless older people and those with disabilities.”

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.