On Monday February 22, 2010, following the release of President Obama’s new health care reform proposal, Nancy Ann Deparle, Director of the White House Office of Health Care Reform,   made the following statement on a conference call about how the Obama proposal addresses abortion: 

The starting point is the Senate bill with the Nelson language.  It’s not a perfect proposal, but it was crafted in a bipartisan manner.  It’s different from the House, but our effort was to not change the status quo on abortion.  I know it’s not ideal, but that’s the starting point we’re working from.

Her statement that the Senate abortion language was “crafted in a bipartisan manner” is inexplicable.   In fact, the Senate abortion language was crafted behind closed doors without a Republican in the room, which was evidenced by the fact that no Republican Senators voted in favor of it (as part of the manager’s amendment to the bill).  Instead of modeling the Senate abortion language after the House abortion language (the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, with its bipartisan nature demonstrated by the political diversity of its cosponsors as well as the 64 Democratic members who voted for it), Majority Leader Reid decided to model the language after the pro-abortion Capps Amendment that was included in an early version of the House bill and in the Senate Finance Committee Bill.  Reid was able to tighten the language just enough to win over Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska, who was holding the key 60^th vote. 

However, no rewording can hide what the Senate language does.  The genesis of the language aside, Ms. Deparle grossly misrepresents how it compares to existing law or the “status quo on abortion.” 

The most well known embodiment of the “status quo on abortion” is the Hyde Amendment, a funding limitation added annually to the Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Bill.  However, there are numerous other laws that adopt the same principles in the Hyde Amendment – that no federal funds may be used to pay for abortions (except in cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother) or to subsidize insurance plans that cover abortions. 

The Senate bill does not adopt the comprehensive approach to prohibiting federal funding of abortion found in the Hyde Amendment (and the House health care reform bill).  Instead, the Senate bill:

• Only prohibits the use of certain funds to pay for abortions, leaving open the possibility that other authorized funds – such as the 11 billion dollars provided for Community Health Centers –  will be used to pay for abortions.  Furthermore, even the paltry limitation in the bill is not built on solid ground – it is tied to the existence of the Hyde Amendment which is subject to elimination every year.  So, if the Hyde amendment is ever removed from LHHS appropriations, the limited prohibition on federal funding for abortion in the Senate health care reform bill will disappear as well.  Pro-abortion lawmakers are committed to getting rid of the Hyde Amendment, and it is perhaps not cynical to see this as the first step in a two-step plan to do that. 

• Allows federal dollars to directly subsidize insurance plans that cover abortions. Again, this contravenes existing law.  The most well-known example of the prohibition on the use of federal dollars to subsidize insurance plans that cover abortions is the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP).

The Senate bill also fails to maintain the “status quo” on abortion in other ways.  The bill creates new broad mandate authorities for federal agencies and officials that could allow them to require private insurance companies to provide abortion coverage.  For example, under the Mikulski Amendment to the Senate bill, an administrative agency may determine that abortion is “preventive care” and then require all insurance companies to cover abortion.  If that happens, all Americans will be forced to pay for abortions through their insurance premiums, even in violation of their conscience. 

Speaking of conscience, while the Hyde-Weldon conscience amendment (added annually to LHHS appropriations) prohibits government entities from discriminating against health care entities that refuse to participate in abortions, the Senate bill only prohibits discrimination against health care entities by insurance plans participating in the new government exchanges.

Clearly, the Obama Administration is not trying to maintain the “status quo” on abortion with health care reform.  Health care reform is another weapon in the Administration’s arsenal to mainstream abortion in the United States.

For a detailed comparison of the Hyde Amendment, the House bill, and the Senate bill, including citations, please click here.

On Monday morning, February 22, 2010, President Obama unveiled a “new” health care reform proposal, purporting to combine ideas from the Senate-passed bill, the House-passed bill, and Republican proposals.  However, a careful examination of the White House proposal (which lacks actual legislative language) and statements made by members of the Obama Administration during a health care conference call on Monday reveal the truth – the “new” proposal is simply a modified version of the anti-life bill that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve. 

Unfortunately, while the White House was crafting modifications to the Senate bill, they failed to remove the anti-life language.  Therefore, all of AUL’s concerns about the bill’s abortion-related provisions, conscience provision, and end-of-life provisions remain.  Further, the White House proposal dramatically increases funding – by 11 billion dollars – for “community health centers” which will include Planned Parenthood abortion centers.  Because the proposal lacks a blanket prohibition on the use of federal funds for abortions, these new funds could be used to directly pay for abortions.

For detailed analyses of the anti-life provisions in the Senate health care reform bill, please see the following posts:

Legal Analysis of Life Concerns in President’s Proposal (Same as the Senate Health Care Reform Bill)

Abortion Tax and other Problems in President’s Proposal (Same as the Senate Health Care Reform Bill)

Abortion Funding Chart (In President’s Proposal and Senate Health Care Reform Bill)

Comparison Chart of Hyde Amendment, Senate Bill/President’s Proposal, and House Bill

Also, please see the letter which AUL’s sister organization, AUL Action, sent to President Obama on July 21, 2009.

Over the past week, the Obama Administration has made two key decisions on bioethics — both of which promote unethical and anti-life policies.

First, on November 24, President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13521, establishing the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. The new Commission, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will “advise the President on bioethical issues that may emerge as a consequence of advances in biomedicine and related areas of science and technology. The Commission shall pursue its work with the goal of identifying and promoting policies and practices that ensure scientific research, healthcare delivery, and technological innovation are conducted in an ethically responsible manner.” By deliberate design, the Commission will be heavily involved in determining the Administration’s policies regarding human cloning, embryonic stem-cell research, and already-proven and ethical forms of research such as the use of adult stem cells.

However, it is important to view the Order and the purported goals of this Commission in light of the fact that, in June 2009, President Obama dissolved the President’s Council on Bioethics established by President George W. Bush in 2001. As Dr. David Prentice of the Family Research Council has noted, the Council’s charter was not scheduled to end until September 2009 and, at the time there was concern that “it was booted early to clear the deck for a new bioethics group aligned with the [P]resident. But no new bioethics council was formed to fill the void. Seems likely the old bioethics council was just giving contrary signals to the President (10 of the 18 members criticized the President after his March 9 speech where he opened the possibility of using more human embryos for research, including creating cloned human embryos for experiments.) Given that the [National Institutes of Health] was preparing to promulgate new guidelines for using human embryos, including the steps to take for their destruction to allow federal taxpayer funding of their harvested cells, the ‘President’s’ bioethics council presented an official unwelcome burr under the saddle.”

The complete membership of the Commission has yet to be disclosed, but the Executive Order provides that “at least one and not more than three [of the Commission members] … may be bioethicists or scientists drawn from the executive branch, as designated by the President.” So, President Obama is in a position to appoint like-minded individuals to the Commission — individuals, who like the President, support life-destroying and unethical research while blithely ignoring the substantial promise of ethical forms of research including adult stem-cell research which has already yielded treatments and therapies for more than 70 diseases and conditions.

And just today, the Administration explicitly authorized the use of taxpayer dollars for destructive embryo research. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has approved up to $21 million for research on 13 embryonic stem-cell lines — lines created through the destruction of days-old human embryos. Notably, in March 2009, President Obama rescinded President Bush’s August 2001 Executive Order limiting federal funding to research on then-existing embryonic stem-cell lines and prohibiting federal funding of the production of or research on newly-created embryonic stem-cell lines.

In making today’s announcement, NIH’s Frances Collins noted that “[w]hat we are announcing today is just the beginning.” According to LifeNews.com, “NIH is also reviewing hundreds of other embryonic stem cell lines for federal funding under the guidelines the agency issued to implement Obama’s order.”

The politically-driven audacity of these moves cannot be underestimated. Why are American taxpayers being forced to fund research that many consider immoral? Moreover, why are we investing in this immoral research when ethical forms of research are yielding real treatments for real patients while destructive embryo research has never yielded a single positive outcome? The answer would appear to be: “It’s politics, stupid.”

There are, of course, many unnamed victims of the attack at Fort Hood.  Spouses, parents, children, siblings, friends.  Each left to suffer and question why, on American soil, their loved one’s life was violently ended.

But there was another victim that has been frequently overlooked: the unborn child of soldier Francheska Velez.  When Hasan took Velez’s life, he took the life of her unborn baby as well.

As the country looks for justice to be served in this horrendous tragedy, we cannot forget that Hasan can and should be charged with the death of Baby Velez as well. 

The Uniform Code of Military Justice was modified when President George W. Bush signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (UBVV) in 2004.  Also known as “Laci and Conner’s Law,” the federal UBVV law applies only to federal crimes and federal jurisdictions, such as military installations.  That is why AUL pushes so vehemently for states to enact their own versions of the federal UBVV law.

As AUL explained in Defending Life 2009:

“Thus, the biggest impact of Laci and Conner’s law may be in its revisions to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Military prosecutors can now pursue charges against military personnel stationed anywhere in the world if their actions cause the death of an unborn child; previously, they were limited to filing such charges only in those states with laws protecting unborn victims of violence.  A case such as that of Airman Gregory L. Roberts, who in 1996 savagely beat his pregnant wife, rupturing her uterus and killing their unborn daughter, resulted in manslaughter charges only because Ohio, where he was stationed, had a fetal homicide law on its books. Had Roberts been stationed in Colorado or North Carolina—states with a significant military presence, but no laws protecting an unborn child from violence—he could not have been charged with his daughter’s death and would have faced prosecution only for the assault on his wife.”

You can read the entire article here.

Because the UBVV law was signed in 2004 and is incorporated in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, justice can be sought for Baby Velez.

Buried in an Associated Press story last week on President Obama’s health care reform agenda was a fact that counters misleading statements from the White House: The Hyde Amendment does not protect American taxpayers from funding abortions through ObamaCare.

The AP reports:

The main point of contention is the proposed new federal subsidies that would help lower-income people purchase health care coverage from private plans — and potentially from a new government-sponsored plan — within a new purchasing exchange.

Currently a law called the Hyde amendment bars federal funding for abortion — except in cases of rape and incest or if the mother’s life would be endangered — and applies those restrictions to Medicaid, forcing states that cover abortion for low-income women to do so with their own money. Separate laws apply the restrictions to the federal employee health plan and military and other programs.

But the Democrats’ health overhaul bill would create a new stream of federal funding not covered by the restrictions.

As blogger Ed Morrissey notes, “It only took the Associated Press six weeks after Rep. Joe Wilson’s ‘You lie!’, but they finally have reported that Barack Obama told a whopper in his joint speech to Congress — and that Democrats have lied all along about abortion and ObamaCare.” But the misinformation from the White House didn’t end with Obama’s speech.  Twice in recent weeks, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has insisted to reporters that the Hyde Amendment is sufficient to prevent federal funds from subsidizing abortion.

Morrissey adds:

Democrats have used the Hyde Amendment as a big red herring during this debate.They have repeatedly argued that their ObamaCare bills do not repeal the Hyde Amendment, which is at once both true and irrelevant.  The funding for ObamaCare bypassed the Hyde amendment, which allows most Democrats to pose dishonestly on the issue.

That was most true when Barack Obama told Congress and the American people that no federal dollars would go for abortions.  He knew, or at least he should have known, that the Hyde Amendment did not cover the funding his own party proposed for coverage.  He also knew that his party had blocked efforts to close that loophole in the bill.  Obama either lied or showed a dismaying ignorance of the facts in the debate, and given his endorsement of Planned Parenthood and theirs in return, I’m betting he isn’t ignorant on this issue at all.

Indeed, while on the campaign trail, Obama vowed to Planned Parenthood that abortion funding would be the “center and heart” of his health care plan. The current bill is on track to keep that promise–unless Americans call on the President and Congress to keep his promise to America–that of an abortion-free health care bill–and not his promise to Planned Parenthood.

TAKE ACTION: Join Team Life via AUL Action’s RealHealthCareRespectsLife.com and make your voice heard in Washington.

When President Obama was on the campaign trail, he promised Planned Parenthood that the “first thing” he would do as President would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA)–a bill that would strike down all regulations on abortion, denying Americans their rights of conscience, and forcing taxpayers to fund the destruction of unborn life.

But word got out, and the outcry from pro-life Americans–including the hundreds of thousands who joined AUL Action’s Fight FOCA campaign–caused the President to delay carrying out his promise. Instead, he embarked upon a campaign of FOCA by stealth, building the most pro-abortion presidential administration in history. That effort continues with Obama’s latest nomination to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s executive panel, pro-abortion lawyer Chai Feldblum, who formerly worked for the American Civil Liberties Union.

LifeNews reports:

Feldblum isn’t known by most Americans, but she worked for the pro-abortion Human Rights Campaign Fund and, from 1986-1987, she clerked for Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, the infamous judge who handed down the Roe v. Wade decision that has allowed more than 51 million abortions.

Feldblum’s nomination is particularly threatening to rights of conscience. She considers the legal right to abortion as necessary for “sexual liberty.” In cases where religious liberty–e.g. the right of a doctor to refuse performing an abortion on religious grounds–and “sexual liberty” conflict, she’s gone on record saying “having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.”

TAKE ACTION: Show the White House and Congress that you oppose all efforts to impose “FOCA by Stealth.” Join Team Life at AUL Action’s RealHealthCareRespectsLife.com.

Today Family Research Council released its report, A Passion to Serve, A Vision for Life, highlighting the contributions of pregnancy resource centers (PRCs) over the last 40 years.  The release comes at an interesting time—the President is attempting to make abortion a recognized form of “health care,” and we are seeing increasing attacks on PRCs each legislative session in the form of draconian legislation regulating the activities of PRCs and sometimes even attempting to force them to present information on abortion.

The report released today offers a great rebuttal to those efforts: real health care protects women.  Real health care involves caring guidance to women in need, focusing on both her physical and psychological health.

In a press conference broadcast live over the internet, a panel of speakers—including physicians, clients served by PRCs, and the presidents of three national pregnancy center networks—discussed the impact of PRCs on women’s, adolescent, maternal, and child health and how the movement’s growth is driven by the public’s desire to support abortion alternatives.

This desire is also demonstrated each legislative session.  While we are seeing increasing bills targeting PRCs, those bills are far out-paced each year by bills providing funding and state support to abortion alternatives.

During the press conference, co-author of the report Chuck Donovan, Senior Research Fellow at Heritage Foundation, stated that abortions were reduced by tens of thousands last year through the work of PRCs, and that this work results in enormous healthcare savings.

Co-author Moira Gaul, Fellow and Director of Women’s and Reproductive Health at FRC, added that these volunteer-run PRCs assist over 5,000 Americans on a daily basis, providing a “substantial public health benefit to our nation.”

Ironically, as I drafted this blog entry, AUL received word that the Senate Finance Committee voted down important pro-life amendments that would have prevented the federal funding and coverage of abortion and protected the conscience rights of healthcare providers.

In AUL’s press release, Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President of Americans United for Life, said that the defeat of these amendments illustrates the gap between rhetoric and reality on the Hill over abortion in health care reform:

“President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid have all told the American people that abortion will not be in health care reform.  Nevertheless, the defeat of these amendments demonstrates the gap between rhetoric and reality. These rhetorical assurances are not adding up to action.  The pro-life community will continue a vigorous fight to keep abortion out of health care reform.”

Obama’s claim that he wants to reduce abortions is mere rhetoric.  The amazing work of PRCs on a daily basis in truly reducing abortions is reality.

A Passion to Serve, A Vision for Life is available at http://www.apassiontoserve.org.  AUL will be posting an in-depth analysis of the report’s findings.

AUL President Charmaine Yoest speaks on Fox News with Shannon Bream about the recent meeting at the White House, with President Obama’s key policy staffers.

This week, Americans United for Life’s legislative arm AUL Action met with senior White House officials Melody Barnes, Tina Tchen and Joshua DuBois.  AUL Action President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest called on the White House to clarify President Obama’s recent statement of support for keeping abortion funding out of health care reform.  After the meeting, Dr. Yoest stated that the White House remained noncommittal on explicit language excluding abortion from the health care bill. 

“After the meeting, we remain deeply concerned about abortion funding and the abortion mandate in health care reform.  Ms. Barnes reiterated the President’s statement about opposing abortion funding in his address before Congress last week but the White House would not commit to language that explicitly excludes abortion from health care reform.  The reality on the Hill right now is that the health care bills do include abortion funding. 

Without a specific statutory amendment that includes an explicit ban on federal funding and coverage, taxpayers will be paying for abortion.  Including abortion in health care is something the pro-life movement will oppose vigorously.”  

Dr. Yoest provided the White House with a brief from the Americans United for Life legal team that documents why anything less than a explicit ban on abortion funding and coverage will allow government-funded abortion.     

Dr. Yoest also delivered a petition with over 39,000 signatures from pro-life Americans telling President Obama that they urge him to veto any bill that does not specifically forbid mandating insurance companies to cover abortion.  The petition also urges the President to veto any bill that could make taxpayers responsible for directly or indirectly paying for abortion.  

For further information, please visit AUL’s health care website: www.RealHealthCareRespectsLife.com

CBN Story: Pro-Lifers Suspicious of New Health Care Bill

Americans United for Life’s sister organization Americans United for Life Action will relay the pro-life community’s deep concerns about health care reform directly to the White House this Thursday, September 17, when AUL Action meets at the White House with Melody Barnes, President Obama’s Domestic Policy Advisor, Tina Tchen, who directs White House’s Office of Public Engagement and Joshua Dubois, director of the White House’s Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Americans United for Life Action President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest said, “We plan to take the message to the White House that real health care respects life. Abortion is not health care, but without an explicit, proactive exclusion of abortion, the courts will impose an abortion mandate just as they did with Medicaid. The abortion lobby is using health care reform to try to end-run around the Hyde Amendment which has been a thorn in their side. Their ultimate objective is to define abortion as basic health care which Americans do not support. We have a petition to the President protesting the abortion mandate on www.realhealthcarerespectslife.com that we intend to hand deliver at our meeting.”

The White House made the invitation in response to AULA’s open letter to President Obama, and Dr. Yoest’s agenda items for it include the concerns outlined in that letter: the current health care reform bills’ mandating government coverage and funding of abortion, their insufficient provisions for conscience protection, and the risk the bills carry of denial of care for the elderly and very ill.

          AULA Staff Counsel Mary Harned asks: “If pro-abortion members of Congress do not intend for the health care reform bills to fund and mandate abortion coverage, why did they vote against all amendments that would have included explicit language excluding abortion funding and coverage?

These Pro-life Amendments Explicitly Excluding Abortion in the Health Care Bills Were Defeated:

U.S. Senate

• (1) Senator Mike Enzi’s (R-WY) amendments that would have prevented taxpayer funding of abortion and would prevent abortion clinics from being eligible for federally qualified health center grants;
• (2) Senator Orin Hatch’s (R-UT) amendments that would have prevented tax-funded abortions unless the life of the mother is endangered or unless the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest (making the Hyde Amendment permanent);
• (3) Senator Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) amendments that would have ensured no abortion mandates, prevented abortion clinics from being eligible for federally qualified health center grants, prevented the invalidation of state laws that regulate abortion, codified the Hyde/Weldon conscience protection law, and ensured that Americans have professional ethicists informing any Government-funded medical decisions; and
• (4) Senator Pat Roberts’ (R-KS) amendment which would have prevented the invalidation of state laws regulating abortion.

U.S. House of Representatives

In the Education and Labor Committee:

• • Amendment to prohibit the abortion coverage mandate (Rep. Souder) failed (19-29).
  • Amendment to prohibit the abortion funding mandate (Rep. Souder) failed (19-29).

 In the Ways and Means Committee:

• • Amendment to prohibit the abortion coverage mandate (Rep. Johnson) (failed 18-23).
  • Amendment to prohibit the abortion funding mandate (Rep. Cantor) (failed 19-22).

 House Energy and Commerce Committee:

• • Amendment to prohibit the abortion coverage mandate (Reps. Pitts, Stupak, and Blunt) (failed  29-30).
  • Amendment to prohibit the abortion funding mandate (Reps. Stupak and Pitts) (failed 27-31).

For further information, please visit AUL’s health care website:

www.RealHealthCareRespectsLife.com

In his address to a Joint Session of Congress this evening, President Obama repeated his claim that “no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion.”  However, he failed to commit to supporting language that explicitly prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars for abortion.

AUL’s President and CEO, Dr. Charmaine Yoest, expressed disappointment in the President’s address, stating, “President Obama has previously articulated a desire to see a decrease in the number of abortions performed in the United States.  Yet he is throwing his support behind legislation that will equate abortion with basic health care.”  Dr. Yoest further explained that “Americans understand that abortion is not health care, and that the women and unborn children in our country deserve better.” 

AUL’s Staff Counsel, Mary Harned, said, “No matter how President Obama and Congress change the structure of the health care reform proposals — whether there is a public option, co-op, exchange, or the like — any legislation that provides government funding for health care must contain explicit language that excludes abortion.  Abortion is not health care; however, based on how courts have interpreted Medicaid, we know that courts will interpret any legislation relating to government-funded health care as requiring abortion coverage unless there is an explicit prohibition (like Hyde).”

In their legal memoranda, AUL’s legal team has carefully explained how existing law will not prevent the health care bills from mandating taxpayer funding of abortion.  They also documented how seven circuit courts have held that abortion is covered under Medicaid, necessitating an explicit prohibition on the inclusion of abortion.  Dr. Yoest stated that “courts will certainly interpret any legislation that provides federal funding for health care as they have interpreted Medicaid in the past.  So, any health care reform must include an explicit prohibition on abortion funding and coverage.”

Current proposals mandate abortion coverage and funding in a number of ways, including:

1. An amendment to H.R. 3200 permits and may require abortion coverage in the public health insurance plan, and permits taxpayer funding of private plans that cover elective abortion through the provision of affordability credits
2. The Senate HELP bill delegates to a “Medical Advisory Committee” the role of deciding what benefits any private or public health care plan must offer. This Committee is expected to include abortion as a required minimum benefit.
3. Prior court holdings that state that abortion is included within several of Medicaid’s mandatory categories of care (inpatient services, outpatient services, and preventative care) will certainly apply to any federal statute revising Medicaid and involving health care reform.
4. The rejection of several key pro-life amendments in the House and Senate Committees, which would have ensured that abortion was not funded in the bills, demonstrates that the bills are intended to mandate abortion.

Today, Americans United for Life, the nation’s oldest national pro-life organization, launched its “Back to the Hill” campaign to educate lawmakers and Americans on the current health care proposals’ threats to the lives of the elderly, ill, and unborn. 

AUL’s sister organization AUL Action (AULA) sent a letter today to Speaker Nancy Pelosi to protest recent disinformation on her Web site about abortion in health care.  AULA is also meeting with the White House on September 17 to discuss the problem of taxpayer-funded abortion in the proposed health care reform.

Americans United for Life will be paying close attention to President Obama’s address this evening before a joint session of Congress.   President Obama has stated that claims that abortion was in the health care proposals were a “fabrication,” and has claimed that he aims to reduce the “need” for abortions.   However, on the campaign trail in 2007, Obama assured a Planned Parenthood Action Fund conference that abortion would be “at the center and the heart” of his health care reform, and the current health care proposals reflect that priority. AUL’s legal team has detailed the elements in the proposals that would mandate taxpayer-funded abortion coverage.

Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President and CEO of AUL, said, “Tonight, President Obama needs to address the abortion mandate in the health care reform proposals currently before Congress.  History has shown that where abortion is not explicitly excluded, courts will interpret legislative language to mandate it.” 

William Saunders, AUL Sr. Vice President of Legal Affairs, added, “An explicit and permanent prohibition on abortion coverage and funding is essential to prevent Congress, or an activist court, from mandating coverage and taxpayer funding of all elective abortions under the guise of health care.” 

AUL will be tweeting and liveblogging President Obama’s speech tonight. 

AUL’s Health Care Information Hub: Real Health Care Respects Life.com:

• Back to the Hill Guide: What to Expect Next
• FAQ about Health Care Reform
• Talking Points
• Video: Obama on Abortion in Health Care
• Health Care Bills in Congress
• End-of-Life Issues in Bills
• Federal Courts on Abortion in Current Bills
• Federal Courts on Abortion and Medicaid Coverage
• Status of the Hyde Amendment