americans united for life blog — Changing Law to Protect Human Life, State by State — Page 2

House Votes to Approve the Rule

November 7, 2009

At 1:43 pm on Nov. 7, 2009, the House of Representatives voted to approve H.Res. 903, the Rule under which Democratic leadership will bring H.R. 3962, the Affordable Healthcare for America bill, to the House floor. (Roll Call vote No. 882) The voted was approved by a vote of 242-192.
The House will now begin debating [...]

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Fact Check: Washington Post Gets Their Facts Wrong on Abortion in Health Care

November 7, 2009

An editorial in the Washington Post today asserted, “The controversy over abortion funding is similarly phony. Federal law prohibits the use of federal money for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or where the life of the mother is endangered. The House bill would leave that restriction in place. It would exclude abortion from [...]

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Endorsement of Pro-Life Amendment and New Score Letter

November 7, 2009

Americans United for Life’s legislative arm Americans United for Life Action endorses a key vote today on the House floor of the Stupak-Ellsworth-Pitts-Kaptur-Dahlkemper-Lipinski-Smith Amendment, an Amendment that blocks any federal money from going to abortion in health care reform
Americans United for Life Action’s President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest said, “Americans United for Life Action [...]

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What’s Wrong with the Ellsworth Amendment – Summary and Analysis

November 5, 2009

On Friday the House Rules Committee is expected to report out a rule governing debate on H.R. 3962, the House health care reform bill. It is likely that this rule will include language called the “Ellsworth Amendment,” after Congressman Brad Ellsworth of Indiana. This language is being touted as a pro-life amendment. In reality, the [...]

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Popping the “Bubble Zone” Jurisprudence Before It Floats Away

November 5, 2009

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found a Pittsburg ordinance restricting access to public areas around abortion clinics unconstitutional. More specifically, the court held the ordinance to be “insufficiently tailored” because it “burdens substantially more speech than necessary” to achieve the City’s stated interest—to prevent “harassment and obstruction of entrances” [...]

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Rep. Ellsworth’s Proposal Does Not Prevent Abortion Funding in Health Care Reform

November 5, 2009

Yesterday, the House Rules Committee announced that the “rule” for considering the sweeping health care legislation will encompass the language put forward by Rep. Brad Ellsworth, D-Ind. that the House leadership is falsely describing as pro-life. By allowing the Ellsworth language, House Democratic leaders hope to address the reluctance of pro-life Democrats to vote for [...]

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AUL Fact Check on “Abortion Under Fire” by Dana Goldstein (The Daily Beast, 11.1.09)

November 4, 2009

In her blog entry on The Daily Beast, Dana Goldstein records pro-abortion leader Judy Waxman’s incredible statement that the new House health care bill, H.R. 3962, “leans toward the pro-life position.” To support this conclusion Goldstein’s entry relies on statements from several abortion rights advocates. However, the current version of the House bill is neither [...]

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Local Planned Parenthood Director Quits After Watching Ultrasound

November 3, 2009

A woman is far more likely to choose life if she sees an ultrasound of her unborn child, which is why AUL has long promoted laws requiring abortion clinics to give clients the opportunity to view their ultrasound. Now, it appears that an ultrasound can change the heart of an abortion-clinic director as well. Last [...]

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Critical House Vote: Current House Health Care Bill Would Create the Largest Expansion of Taxpayer-Funded Abortion in over 30 years

November 3, 2009

The U.S. House health care overhaul bill H.R. 3962 could receive a vote as early as Thursday. H.R. 3962 would create a new stream of federal funding not covered by the restrictions of the Hyde Amendment prohibiting federal funding of abortion.
Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest said, “If this week’s House [...]

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Illinois Politics and the ACLU: An Alliance Detrimental to Adolescent Health and Parental Rights

November 3, 2009

Minors in Illinois have been unprotected from the harms of abortion for decades. The legislature passed a parental notice law in 1995—a law substantially similar to the 36 other state laws requiring either parental notice or consent. But of course, the ACLU had to step in and challenge the law. And until the Seventh Circuit [...]

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Analysis of Life Provisions in H.R. 3962

October 30, 2009

The new version of health care reform unveiled by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi fails to exclude abortion funding and coverage – in fact, it explicitly includes it. Below is AUL’s legal analysis of the abortion provisions in the bill, as well as an analysis of the conscience protection, Comparative Effectiveness Research, and End-of-life [...]

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AUL’s Statement on New House Health Care Bill

October 29, 2009

Statement by Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest:
“Just as Americans United for Life had expected, the new House health care bill unveiled this morning includes the Capps Amendment language added during the Energy and Commerce Committee mark-up. This bill will explicitly allow federal funding of abortion through the public option and [...]

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Scoring Health Care Letter Goes to House Members

October 29, 2009

Today, at the same time that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was unveiling the new House health care reform bill, Americans United for Life’s legislative arm AUL Action sent a letter to members of the House of Representatives to express our deep concern over the life-related provisions in the bill. Just as we expected, the “new” bill [...]

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House Democrats Expected to Unveil Pro-Abortion Health Care Bill

October 29, 2009

Today, House Democrats are expected to unveil a health care overhaul bill that will likely include new federal funding for abortions not covered by the Hyde Amendment, a funding restriction on abortion limited to programs funded through the Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Bill. Leading pro-life Democrat Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) indicated this week [...]

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“Our plan” or “my plan” – federal dollars will be spent on abortion

October 28, 2009

In September, President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress and said “under our plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion.” Currently, however, all three health care reform proposals in Congress mandate abortion funding to varying degrees. Recognizing this, President Obama now seeks to clarify that by “our plan” he did not [...]

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Center for Reproductive Rights against Common Ground

October 28, 2009

In August, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton highlighted sex-selection abortions as an abuse against women in India and China saying, “unfortunately with technology, parents are able to use sonograms to determine the sex of a baby, and to abort girl children simply because they’d rather have a boy.”
But sex-selection abortions are not a phenomenon foreign [...]

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How The Public Option Will Allow Abortion in Health Care

October 28, 2009

Senate Majority Leader Reid announced that he will include a “public option” (government-run insurance plan) in the final Senate health care reform bill. While the language of the final Senate bill, like the final House bill, is not available for public consumption, it is not hard to predict what the inclusion of a “public option” [...]

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New Murder Case Brings California’s Fetal-Homicide Ban into Public Eye

October 27, 2009

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday that a Los Angeles man, Joshua Woodward, has been arrested for the intentional homicide of his unborn child. As public comments on the case posted to the online Chronicle story show, this kind of prosecution provokes public confusion. Here are some answers to questions not addressed in the [...]

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Associated Press Admits Hyde Amendment Won’t Prevent ObamaCare from Funding Abortions

October 25, 2009

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 [...]

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Congress Divided Over Abortion in Health Care: Blocks on Procedural Votes Needed

October 23, 2009

Today, an Associated Press article highlighted the division among Democrats in the House of Representatives over abortion in health care reform. The article accurately describes several of the reasons why pro-life members of Congress are not satisfied with the “Capps Amendment” (language added to the House bill during the Energy and Commerce Committee mark-up):
1) The [...]

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