CNS News did some investigating, and Ed Morrissey came up with this analysis:

At least ostensibly, this is an unfunded mandate on the states, which run the exchanges. What happens when no insurer in the state offers abortion coverage? At the moment, 87% of all abortions are purchased outside of third-party payers, so this is not an academic question. Do the feds intend to shut down an exchange that doesn’t offer an abortion plan? Or do they expect the states then to cover abortions instead?

… Once Congress stops re-enabling the Hyde Amendment, the mandates in Reid’s Section 1303 will force the federal government to supply the coverage for abortion where state exchanges have none. It will give the federal government an entree into broader health-insurance offerings, and that will have one ironic effect: it will crowd out those few private insurance plans that offer elective abortion coverage. Where Stupak’s opponents insisted that his language would create a “price signal” that would encourage private insurers to abandon abortion coverage, this would all but guarantee the same result, as private insurers would get undercut by the federal plan that would come into play.

This is nothing more than a mandate for federally-funded abortions. How long would it take a court to make that same determination? I suspect that Planned Parenthood and NARAL already have their legal counsel preparing for it.

It’s not exactly a surprise that the health care bill would include funding for abortion. Feminists have been howling about the Stupak amendment, the abortion lobby has been furious. Liberals were bound to cave in to their demands, and they were bound to try to hide it from the federal public. It is typical of liberals. And it’s infuriating to anyone with any kind of morals or respect for the sanctity of life. It’s bad enough that abortion is celebrated as some kind of right in this country, like it’s glorious for a woman to be able to go and kill her baby. Feminists in particular revel in it, like it’s some kind of sacred cow. Apparently, you have to be a member of the “I <3 Abortion" club in order to be a feminist in today's world. There are currently about 1.3 million abortions performed a year, and this isn't good enough for feminists. They not only want abortion to be free and legal, they want it to be paid for by Americans whether they like it or not. It has to be taxpayer-funded.

It's important that we all understand this. It's not good enough for feminists just to have abortion be legal and freely accessible. Any woman who wants to can get an abortion. And there is already $300 million a year in taxpayer subsidies for Planned Parenthood. There's plenty of federal funding for abortion, but feminists always want more. It isn't enough for abortion to be legal, it isn't enough for it to be federally subsidized. How much do they want? Does every single abortion performed need to be taxpayer funded so that any woman who wants one never has to pay for it out of her own pocket? It's a disgusting state of affairs. Half the country is morally opposed to abortion. But liberals are a special group of people. If they believe in something, then everyone must be for it and it must be federally mandated and subsidized. If they don't believe in something, then no one should believe in it and it must be totally banned. And so, thanks to this mental outlook and the carping of the feminist/abortion lobby, we are now looking at forcing half of the people in this country to fund something to which they are virulently opposed.

Burn up that switchboard today. You can find contact information for your senators here.

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary, or follow her on Twitter!

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

Last week Mary Fitzgerald argued that climate change is a feminist issue on the basis that population control is a way to prevent the situation spiralling out of control. And, she posited, this could be achieved by giving more women more autonomy over their own bodies, through improved access to contraception and abortion.

I’m not going to get into the arguments around whether population control is a good solution to climate change. Others have already done so; George Monbiot’s piece barely more than a month ago, for this newspaper, is a great place to start.

Ensuring all women have full reproductive freedom and reproductive justice is a necessary goal in its own right moving towards a more equal and just world. I get that it might be tempting to hitch this issue to climate change, which has so much political capital.

I thought she wasn’t going to get into that issue, which she discusses for two more paragraphs after the first three? Anyhow

But Fitzgerald is completely right that climate change is a feminist issue. Everyone stands to suffer if climate change is allowed to spiral out of control, of course, but a gender analysis of both the impacts and causes of climate change shows that globally women contribute less to the problem and yet are likely to be hit especially hard.

Poor people are likely to bear the brunt as the climate changes and 70% of the world’s poor are women. According to one estimate, 85% of the victims of climate disasters are women. Another study found 75% of environmental refugees are women. (Statistics from the Women’s Manifesto on Climate Change).

Gotta love the source of the study. Here’s a clue for you, Ms. Jesse McAbe: you enact all your crazy global warming plans, and the women in the poor countries will suffer way, way, way more.

After some more quibbling about how this is a feminsta issue, we end with

So, yes, climate change is a feminist issue; women are on the front lines of climate change impact and need to be part of creating solutions. And women all over the world are in dire need of access to full and real reproductive justice. But linking the two by advocating population control as a solution to climate change isn’t the way to achieve either of these aims.

Only in Liberal World can we link access to abortion around the world to globull warming. Sigh.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

At the last minute Representative Bart Stupak (D, Mich.) was successful in getting Speaker Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership to approve an amendment that would prohibit federal spending on abortion added to its nationalized healthcare bill passed and sent to the Senate over the weekend. But a senior Democrat says that the Stupak amendment will be stripped from the bill if the Senate returns the bill for approval.

Of course, the only reason that the House healthcare bill was passed out of the House at all was because of the Stupak Amendment, still left-wingers in Congress are vowing to strip the final bill of one of the only measures that appeals to moderates.

Far left Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D, Fla.) has vowed that the anti-abortion amendment will be gone by the time the bill comes up for a final vote after the Senate debate. Pro-abortion activist and Democratic Congressman from Colorado Diana DeGette has been passing around a letter to her far left colleagues vowing not to vote for a future healthcare bill that does not include abortion funding. She has announced that 40 House Democrats have signed her pledge.

The truth is that the House bill has bare support and without the Stupak Amendment it couldn’t have passed.

However, the vows of abortion advocates in Congress also proves another thing, here. It proves that “no” doesn’t always mean “no.” The Pelosicare version of Obamacare now says no abortion funding, but that is meaningless the next time the bill comes up for a vote. Congress may pass a nationalized healthcare system that does not include abortion funding but that doesn’t mean anything to a future Congress. Once healthcare become a federal matter, any future Congress can change the rules anytime it feels like it and slide abortion funding right into the rules. Maybe in the middle of night on a Saturday… just like Pelosi did to pass the bill this time.

And therein lies the problem. No matter what this bill says now, the matter is not and can never be settled. Federalized healthcare will be a permanent political football used to solicit votes from favored special interests all the way until the day that the federal government is bankrupted by its onerous financial burdens. No abortion funding may be the rule today, but next time they just might get it through.

It’s all because no leftist idea ever dies. It only sits quietly until another push secures victory. No never means no to a leftist.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

For Constitution Day this year at Sacramento City College Associated Student Government (ASG) President and student Steve Macias arranged for a group named Genocide Awareness Project, an anti-abortion group, to participate on campus in the Constitution Day activities.

The group was approved for participation by the ASG and set up its booth at the appointed time. And then the world came to an end. Pro-Infanticide groups such as Planned Parenthood set up their own, countering booths the next day and left-wing hatemongers in the student body immediately began to circulate a recall petition to have Mr. Macias removed from the Associated Student Government leadership.

There is also some speculation that this insane, un-American recall effort being visited upon Mr. Macias is being tacitly approved of by the College adviser overseeing the ASG.

Even the local press tried to pile onto an attack of Mr. Macias. The SacCity Express originally reported on October 13 that Macias presented the anti-abortion group under a false name when he submitted the group for the vote of the ASG board. On the 26th the paper printed a retraction admitting their “mistake.”

On his FaceBook site, Mr. Macias also reports that one of Sacramento College’s professors has engaged in a nasty email exchange with the student, too. “Why Do these teachers feel that it is there[sic] role to put us students down?” Macias asks. “I am deeply offended that an instutution[sic] that taxpayers pay for and pay to attend would allow this individual to clearly descriminate[sic] against people of faith. Calling Christianity ‘make believe.’ is unacceptable dialougue[sic] from Teacher[sic] to student. Especially when you seek out and attack the student.”

Amusingly, with her quote on the matter, ASG Vice President Debbie Dixon proved that her parent’s money is being sorrowfully wasted on her failed education.

“I am highly offended, I have rights, just as they have rights to not be offended!”

Sorry Debbie, dear, but there is NO “right” not to be offended. The Constitution safeguards political free speech but it does not safeguard your right “not to be offended.” No one has a right not to be offended because such a right would preclude everyone else’s right to free speech in the first place. After all, what one person feels is right and good to say, someone else somewhere will find offense contained therein. So, dear, dear, lil’ Debbie, no one has a right not to be offended. But, I do have to say, I am offended by your ignorance.

So, what we see with this dispiriting case is typical of the distempered left. All these caring, civilized, open minded, more tolerant lefties are in full attack mode trying to shut down the free speech of people with whom they disagree… as always. Sadly, that’s the fascist, Obamaesque sort of actions we are coming to expect from the extreme left and the bubble ensconced, pointy-headed, ivory tower dwellers in academe, isn’t it?

**UDPATE** 11/9/09

College launches attack campaign on student body president over pro-life group’s display

ADF letter: student officer was simply respecting group’s constitutional rights

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom have issued a cease-and-desist letter to Sacramento City College officials after the president of the Associated Student Government was subjected to an illegal recall election for refusing to censor a pro-life group on campus.

College officials targeted Steve Macias for retaliation after they attempted to censor the speech of an off-campus pro-life group that ASG had already voted to allow to participate in a campus event. Macias refused to censor the pro-life display on the grounds that doing so would violate the group’s First Amendment rights. The officials and ASG retaliated by subjecting him to an illegal recall election.

Full news release, quotes, and related media resources available at the following link:

http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/3397

ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children. If they behave as the average person in the rich world does now, they will emit some 11 tonnes of CO2 every year of their lives. In their turn, they are likely to have more carbon-emitting children who will make an even bigger mess. If Britain is to meet the government’s target of an 80% reduction in our emissions by 2050, we need to start reversing our rising rate of population growth immediately.

All children are bad, but Western children are particularly bad, because according to the Gaiaist religion,

the poorer you are, the less carbon you emit. By today’s standards, a cull of Australians or Americans would be at least 60 times as productive as one of Bangladeshis. …one less British child would permit some 30 women in sub-Saharan Africa to have a baby and still leave the planet a cleaner place.

As usual, the role model for liberals is communist China, which is praised for reducing its population by hundreds of millions by dictating to parents that they can only have one child — a policy that often results in infanticide for baby girls.

If communism and Nazism could leave tens of millions dead, what will be the death toll if the evil freaks driving the environmentalism movement get the leverage to inflict their anti-Western and anti-human fantasies?

In the US, we already have a Science Czar who has advocated putting sterilants in the water supply. Why not use poison instead? After all, it may only be a matter of years before global warming inconveniences the polar bears unless the human race is reduced to a few barefoot peasants cowering before their socialist overlords.

Hat tip: The Blogprof. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

The news is full of the behind closed doors deals being made by Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Pelosi but all is not harmonious in the land of healthcare “reform.”

One example of this is the fight amongst Democrats over abortion funding in Obamacare. Despite claims to the contrary, abortion will be funded by these various healthcare bills floating about in Congress. This fact makes moderate and conservative Democrats uneasy and forms just one of the many disagreements that Democrats are having with Democrats over Obamacare.

The Hill reports on this disagreement that has seen a group of up to 40 House Democrats banding together to oppose abortion funding in Obamacare.

These 40 Democrats, led by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), are warning that they will try to block the healthcare bill if it still has abortion funding in it.

Stupak wants to force Pelosi to allow a vote on an amendment that would strip abortion funding from the House bill but is strongly opposed by Pelosi and powerful Democrats such as House Rules Committee chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), who has apparently said there is “no way” she will allow a vote on Stupak’s amendment.

“There’s about 40 like-minded Democrats like myself — we’ll try to take down the rule,” Stupak said. “If all 40 of us vote in a bloc against the rule — because we think the Republicans will join us — we can defeat the rule. The magic number is 218. If we can have 218 votes against the rule, we win.”

According to The Hill, however, Stupak needs at least 41 Democrats to join his effort to affect the legislation. Still, it shows that the Democrats are not entirely united behind the far left-wing agenda of Obama, Reid, and Pelosi.

(Cross posted at HealthcareHorseRace.com.)

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

A few weeks ago Jon Fleischman of FlashReport.org was fortunate enough to snag an interview with gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. But the results of one segment of the meeting left him admittedly non-plussed, or as he termed it “unnerved.” Fleischman was aghast to learn of just how extreme Meg Whitman’s views on abortion really are. And after reading Fleischman’s interview myself, I have to wonder if her views makes her completely unelectable amongst California’s pro-lifers?

In the interview, Whitman was completely upfront about the fact that she stands solidly behind public funding of abortion. She was unequivocal about it, really. Whitman explained why she felt that public funding of abortion was the right decision telling Fleischman, “My view is that if we are going to be pro-choice… that it needs to be available to all women, and whether you are rich or poor, you need to be able to access that right. And it’s unfair to women who can not afford an abortion, and that’s why I support public funding.”

It’s one thing to say that a woman should be allowed to chose abortion — this is quite a common determination among liberals — but quite another, indeed, to say that the taxpayers should have to pay for that abortion.

Whitman obviously believes there is a “right” to abortion and that this “right” must be paid for by our tax dollars to be “fair.” This quixotic view of rights is quite an extreme one. After all, if public funds are used to pay for infanticide, then the rights of every taxpayer not to be a party to such actions is necessarily violated. Apparently Whitman doesn’t care that those with staunchly anti-abortion views might get queasy that their taxes are going to fund abortions.

Thankfully, Whitman agrees that late term abortions are wrong, but one has to wonder what arbitrary reasoning she uses to justify claiming that abortion is a “right” on one hand, but must be outlawed three to four months before full term on the other? Since when are rights based on age requirements? Does a person have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness only at a certain age? Or are true rights endemic to the human condition as has always been believed? If the later then Whitman hasn’t a logical leg to stand on with her view on rights and if the former then rights are transitory and open to the capriciousness of temporary popular sentiment making them less a right and more an mere opinion.

Whitman’s abortion views seem to have placed her decidedly in the minority, too. A recent Pew Research Poll finds that support for abortion is falling nation-wide.

Polls conducted in 2009 have found fewer Americans expressing support for abortion than in previous years. In Pew Research Center polls in 2007 and 2008, supporters of legal abortion clearly outnumbered opponents; now Americans are evenly divided on the question, and there have been modest increases in the numbers who favor reducing abortions or making them harder to obtain. Less support for abortion is evident among most demographic and political groups.

Pew found that opinions were even stronger against abortion when the question became one of making abortions far and few between, the pro-abortion view in the minority. The Pew poll also found that the number one reason cited for being anti-abortion was religious beliefs. Whitman’s views put her in direct opposition to those religious views.

Apparently, though, this does not worry her much. She feels that her abortion views should be cast off as the least important of the challenges facing the next governor. She reminded Fleischman that she is running on economic issues, after all. And if you happen to be a single issue voter?

You know what? People need to know where I stand, and what I have said is people will look at the whole package of attributes of my candidacy; my experience, what I bring to the table, my point of view on the social issues, and then people will weigh it. And if there are single issue voters, which there are on almost every issue, if I don’t agree with that person on that issue, whether it’s this issue or gay marriage or how I want to approach creating jobs in California, people just have to look at the whole package and say, “Okay. I don’t agree with her on every issue, but I like the general approach and I like her authenticity and what she says.

Public funding of abortion is an extreme view even for many Democrats. But for Republicans it is an infinitesimally minority position. I cannot help but feel that if Whitman’s abortion views become more widely known, she won’t [find it] so easy to blow it all off as a mere side issue.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

Testimony from an employee of Anatomic Gift Foundation and Opening Lines, companies involved in selling parts from aborted fetuses:

QUESTION: Do you think the doctor ever altered the procedures to get you the type of specimens you needed for that day?

ANSWER: Yes, every day. When we would go in to do procedures, the doctor would come in, along with his nurse, and they would want to see the list of what we were going to procure and what we needed. Then he would basically get us the most complete, intact specimen that he could get us. And what I mean by that is that all the limbs, the arms, the head, the chest cavity, were never invaded. They were all completely intact. Sometimes if the fetus was — appeared to be dead, but when you opened up the chest cavity you do see the heart beating, but they’ll be no arms or legs moving.

QUESTION: So they were intentionally altering their type of procedure to give you an intact specimen, even if that meant giving you a live specimen?

ANSWER: That’s correct. Just so we could sell better tissue and more tissue out. So that our company would make more money. And at the end of the year, they would actually give the clinic back more money since we got good specimens.

Check out this price list from Opening Lines:

Unprocessed Specimen (>8 weeks) $70

Unprocessed Specimen (≤ 8 weeks) $50

Livers (≤ 8 weeks) 30% discount if significantly fragmented $150

Livers (> 8 weeks) 30% discount if significantly fragmented $125

Spleens (≤ 8 weeks) $75

Spleens (> 8 weeks) $50

Pancreas (≤ 8 weeks) $100

Pancreas (> 8 weeks) $75

Thymus (≤ 8 weeks) $100

Thymus (> 8 Weeks) $75

Intestines & Mesentery $50

Mesentery (≤ 8 weeks) $125

Mesentery (> 8 weeks) $100

Kidney with/without adrenal (≤ 8 weeks) $125

Kidney with/without adrenal (> 8 weeks) $100

Limbs (at least 2) $150

Brain (≤ 8 weeks) 30% discount if significantly fragmented $999

Brain (> 8 weeks) 30% discount if significantly fragmented $150

Pituitary Gland (8 weeks) $300

Bone Marrow (≤ 8 weeks) $350

Bone Marrow (> 8 weeks) $250

Ears (≤ 8 weeks) $75

Ears (> 8 weeks) $50

Eyes (≤ 8 weeks) $75

Eyes (> 8 weeks) $50

Skin (> 12 weeks) $100

Lungs & Heart Block $150

Intact Embryonic Cadaver (≤ 8 weeks) $400

Intact Embryonic Cadaver (> 8 weeks) $600

Intact Calvarium $125

Intact Truck (with/without limbs) $500

Gonads $550

Cord Blood (Snap Frozen LN) $125 2

Spinal Column $150

Spinal Cord $325

The list is a little dated; no doubt prices are higher now. The price of a soul under liberalism remains the same: cheap.

Hat tips: The Blogprof, HotMES, Sundries Shack. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

Steven Ertelt raised the alarm today that Congressional Democrats are looking for ways to sneak federally funded abortion into Obama’s massive take over of one sixth of the nation’s economy by nationalizing our healthcare system.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa) is warning of the Democrat’s abortion funding plans, as well. “On abortion, despite commitments made by the President and Secretary Sebelius,” Grassely warned, “this bill does not follow the longstanding principle that federal funds should not be provided for elective abortions.”

But pro-life forces are not sitting idly by.

At least six pro-life amendments will be offered that address abortion funding, state laws and the conscience rights of pro-life medical professionals who do not want to be forced to perform or refer for abortions.

Unfortunately, pro-life forces in the Senate are at a disadvantage.

When the Finance committee does vote, the pro-life side starts with a disadvantage as the committee is dominated 14-8 by abortion advocates with all of the Democrats on the panel and one Republican RINO, Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, backing abortion.

This will be a major shift in Congress’s 30-year-long practice of excluding federal funding for abortion in legislation passed. If Obamacare is passed with policies now under consideration by Democrats, federal funds will be used to terminate lives all across the country for non-medical reasons.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

Vilar has committed 15 abortions in 16 years. Here’s how ABC sees fit to report on her accomplishment, and on her attempt to exploit it for financial gain:

Irene Vilar worries that her self-described “abortion addiction” will be misunderstood, twisted by the pro-life movement to deny women the right to choose.

Her book, “Impossible Motherhood,” which will be released by Other Press on Oct. 6, chronicles her own dark choices: 15 abortions in 16 years, much of it as a married woman.

As press on the book has begun to leak out, Vilar — a literary agent and editor — says she has already sensed “an inkling of hatred.”

The poor victim.

I wonder if the butchers at Planned Parenthood give her every tenth abortion on the house. They definitely owe her a lifetime achievement award.

Hat tip: The Blogprof. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post