Govt. report links tax dollars and abortions

Excerpted from "GAO: Taxpayer funds likely paying for abortion under Obamacare," World magazine, September 18, 2014, - The Affordable Care Act requires insurers to separately itemize and charge for abortion coverage, a compromise designed to prevent taxpayer funding of abortions. The compromise drew support from pro-life Democrats in 2010, and was crucial to overcoming Republican opposition.
 
Federal law under the Hyde Amendment prohibits taxpayer funding of abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or threats to the life of the mother. President Barack Obama promised in March 2010 that the Affordable Care Act policies would adhere to the Hyde Amendment.

But the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report revealed taxpayer funding is likely subsidizing elective abortions. The report evaluated the 27 states and Washington, D.C., that do not restrict elective abortion coverage in their insurance markets. It found that 1,036 of the 2,098 subsidized plans in those states cover elective abortions. The 18 evaluated insurers offered a quarter of those policies. Although the GAO report didn’t specify that taxpayer money funded abortions under Obamacare, it raised serious concerns.

“Americans throughout the country have raised serious concerns that they find it nearly impossible to determine whether the plan they purchase finances the killing of unborn children—there is little or no transparency—hence the request by several members of Congress including [House Speaker John] Boehner that GAO investigate,” said Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ, who also co-chairs the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.

“Now we know that at least 1,036 plans cover abortion, and the so-called ‘surcharge’ for abortion coverage is simply an accounting gimmick,” said Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America.

The Health and Human Services Department acknowledged in a written response that “additional clarification may be needed” regarding the healthcare law’s abortion coverage.

In response, pro-lifers have called for the passage of the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” authored by Smith. The House of Representatives passed the bill in January, but it met opposition in the Senate.

Commentary

Mary Harned, Staff Counsel, Americans United for Life (AUL): (from her NRO commentary): “Given the Affordable Care Act's extensive list of shortcomings and controversies, the GAO report may elicit little more than a yawn from the media. Yet, the report is stunning in that it documents how the Obama administration has abandoned and even undermined the very promises that enabled the healthcare legislation to pass the U.S. House of Representatives.

“When objections to taxpayer funding for abortion or abortion coverage nearly brought down the bill, it took an eleventh hour ‘compromise’ — statutory language provided by Senator Ben Nelson (D., Neb.) and a promised executive order — to save the ACA. Now, over four years later, the GAO report confirms that the abortion deal was effectively meaningless.

“The language in the law is unambiguous — ‘separate payments’ are required. Yet, insurance issuers are not collecting separate payments. In fact, the Obama administration is telling issuers that they do not need to collect two checks.

“States that do not require these ‘segregation plans’ cannot know if and how much taxpayer funding is being used to pay for abortions. Insurance issuers who are not collecting separate payments or even itemizing abortion premiums are not likely to be keeping abortions premiums separate from federal funds.

“So, abortions are being paid for out of federally subsidized premiums. That is taxpayer funding for abortion.”

Resources
GAO report. (To see which plans cover abortion, click on "Abortion Services Interactive Map.")

CMA advises Supreme Court on embryo-ending drugs

Excerpted from "U.S. Supreme Court Takes Up Healthcare Law Again," AUL blog, Nov. 26, 2013 - “The U.S. Supreme Court again has the chance to defend the constitutional rights of all Americans, in considering the punishing mandates in a landmark, anti-life law,” commented Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest, on hearing news that the court decided to review two cases challenging Obamacare’s HHS Mandate, Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius and Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores. “Punishing Americans for their moral objection to life-ending drugs and devices is abhorrently un-American.”

Conestoga Wood Specialties is owned by Christians and operated according to the owners’ Mennonite Christian beliefs. Hobby Lobby is an Oklahoma-based national arts and crafts retailer founded and run by David Green and his family. The Greens attribute God’s grace for Hobby Lobby’s success and over the course of four decades of expansion the Green family’s Christian faith has remained an integral part of the business. Both Conestoga Woods and Hobby Lobby do not oppose all contraception, but those drugs and devices that have been labeled as “contraception” by the FDA although they are known to have life-ending effects.

In our briefs, AUL demonstrates that the life of a new human being begins at fertilization (conception), that so-called “emergency contraception” has a post-fertilization effect that can prevent a new human being from implanting in the uterus, and that forcing employers to provide coverage for such drugs violates their constitutionally protected freedom of conscience.

The briefs were filed on behalf of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists, Christian Medical Association, Catholic Medical Association, National Catholic Bioethics Center, Physicians for Life and National Association of Pro Life Nurses.

Commentary

CMDA Executive Vice President Gene Rudd, MD– “Some challenge the rights of these business owners because they do not agree with their understanding of the science—that they are protecting early human life. I remember the debate back in the 1970s among those who foresaw the backlash when the public eventually discovered that developing technologies would abort the development of early human life.

“The strategy since has been to diminish our understanding of the continuum of human life. The strategy includes verbal ploys such as ‘blob of tissue’ and ‘pre-embryo,’ all intended to disguise the truth. Has it worked? Yes, some are either deceived or they failed to value and protect life. But not these business owners. They want their business practices to honor life.

“They want to follow the words of Jesus, who said, “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice” (Luke 8:21, NIV 2011).

“But the new warning from the government is that you should not expect to have a conviction and also think you can live by it. Our Administration would rather you live by its social agenda.

“Under the guise of promoting healthcare, the Administration seeks to force individuals and their businesses to provide reproductive services which the owners find morally objectionable. Some seek to refuse the owners’ rights because they do not share the same convictions. They would rather abandon 200 years of Constitutionally-protected ‘free exercise,’ forcing these owners to comply with and pay for their social views.

“Will our Supreme Court uphold the rights of these individuals to run their businesses by their convictions? Freedom of religion, freedom to live out your conviction, is at stake.”

Action

Use our Freedom2Care pre-written letters to urge your legislators to support conscience rights and religious freedom in healthcare:

Urge your senators to support conscience rights - S.1204
Urge your Rep. to protect conscience rights - HR 940

Resources
On Embryo-Killing “Contraceptives” from The National Review Online
Endowment for Human Development

"Roe" abortion decision lacked medical evidence

Excerpted from a book review by Michael J. New in The Washington Times, October 13, 2013 - a review of Abuse of Discretion: The Inside Story of Roe v. Wade by Clarke Forsythe - Clarke Forsythe persuasively makes the case that even under liberal standards, Roe v. Wade is still deeply flawed. That is partly because the public health data and the historical information that Justice Blackmun relied on in his majority opinion were often incorrect, incomplete or misleading.

For instance, public health research that purportedly showed that abortion was safer than childbirth played a prominent role in Blackmun’s opinion. However, of the seven studies that Blackmun cited, none was peer reviewed and none even considered long-term health risks involved with legal abortion.

The concept of viability was never once even mentioned during the oral arguments. Mr. Forsythe presents correspondence between Justices Blackmun, Thurgood Marshall and Lewis Powell showing that their decision to expand the abortion right to viability was not based on any legal argument, but instead because it would mean more access to abortion.

This expanded access to abortion has had a profoundly negative impact on public health. Mr. Forsythe details the numerous abortion clinic scandals that have come to light since 1973. He also ably summarizes academic research that shows that abortion is linked to an increased risk of breast cancer and a higher incidence of various psychological problems. There is no evidence that Roe v. Wade significantly reduced maternal mortality, child abuse, spousal abuse, poverty or the out-of-wedlock birthrate.

Abuse of Discretion should engage readers outside the pro-life movement by making a compelling argument that even under liberal standards of jurisprudence, Roe v. Wade is a deeply flawed decision.

Commentary

Author Clarke Forsythe, Senior Counsel, Americans United for Life:“Abuse of Discretion details and documents the erroneous medical assumptions adopted by the Justices in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. The principal medical assumption was that “abortion was safer than childbirth.” That drove the outcome and the shape of the Court’s opinions in Roe and Doe, though there was no evidence or reliable data to support that assumption. Abuse of Discretion thoroughly disputes the accuracy of that assumption in 1972 and today.

“Chapter 8, entitled “Detrimental Reliance,” summarizes the contemporary international medical studies finding increased risks of, for example, pre-term birth after abortion.

“The Supreme Court has three abortion cases before it this fall, though the Justices have not yet decided to hear the merits of any of the cases. However, the medical data will be critical in these cases and in all future abortion cases in the courts.”

Lawmakers focusing on abortion and harms to women

Editor's note: AUL attorney Mailee Smith, whose commentary appears below, has written several amicus briefs for the Christian Medical Association, which has participated in 40 court cases.

Excerpted from "The state of pro-life legislation, commentary by Mailee Smith, staff counsel at Americans United for Life (aul.org), published in The Washington Times, Sep. 4, 2013 -- In 2013, life-affirming federal and state legislation designed to protect women from the harms inherent in abortion has garnered increasing attention and support from legislators and the American public — and engendered increasing fear and consternation among abortion advocates and their allies.

Abortion advocates appear particularly dismayed with recent legislative efforts to enact laws prohibiting abortion after five months of pregnancy. The reality is that a woman seeking an abortion at 20 weeks is 35 times more likely to die from abortion than she is in the first trimester. At 21 weeks or more, she is 91 times more likely to die from abortion than she is in the first trimester. Legislative efforts to limit abortion after this point directly protect maternal health, no matter how the pregnancy began. Even the liberal Huffington Post recently admitted that Americans overwhelmingly support limitations on such late-term abortions.

Yet abortion advocates oppose banning late-term abortion as well as laws requiring that women be informed of the health risks they face from abortion. The evidence of abortion’s devastating harms to women is overwhelming. Consider this partial list of the short-term and long-term physical and psychological risks associated with abortion:

• Short-term risks include blood loss, blood clots, incomplete abortion, infections such as pelvic inflammatory disease, cervical lacerations and other injuries to organs.
• Premature birth: At least 130 studies have shown an increased risk of subsequent premature birth and low birth-weight infants after abortion. The increased risk of these devastating complications is estimated to be approximately 37 percent after one abortion, 90 percent after two abortions and further increased risk for each additional abortion.
• Placenta previa is the condition during pregnancy in which the placenta covers the cervix, increasing the risks of life-threatening maternal hemorrhage, premature birth and perinatal child death. Abortion increases the risk of placenta previa in subsequent pregnancies by from 30 percent to 50 percent, and much more so for women who have had multiple abortions.
• Breast cancer: It is undisputed that a woman’s first full-term pregnancy reduces her risk of breast cancer. Numerous studies show that abortion may increase a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer. In one study funded by the National Cancer Institute, pro-choice researcher Dr. Janet Daling found that “among women who had been pregnant at least once, the risk of breast cancer in those who had experienced an induced abortion was 50 percent higher than among other women.”
• Mental health: A 2011 study in the British Journal of Psychiatry examined 22 studies conducted from 1995 to 2009 and found that women face an 81 percent increased risk of mental health problems following abortion. Women experienced increased risks for anxiety at 34 percent, for depression at 37 percent, for alcohol abuse at 110 percent and for suicide at 155 percent.
• Maternal mortality: Abortion advocates wrongly assert that abortion is safer than childbirth. Many studies show the opposite, including one that found maternal death to be three times more likely from abortion than from childbirth.
• Risks of later-term abortions: Abortion’s risks increase the further into pregnancy it is performed. Beginning at five months of pregnancy, the risk of complications from abortion rises dramatically.

Abortion advocates cannot counter this growing medical data. Instead, they resort to outrageous arguments camouflaging the fact that they are ignoring the health risks of abortion to pregnant women, who deserve our protection.


Resources

Court Briefs Summary
Korte v. HHS Amicus Brief
Isaacson v. Horne Amicus Brief of AAPS et al
Action

Use the pre-written, customizable forms at CMA's legislative action website to encourage your legislators to pass life-honoring bills on abortion.

Court protects pharmacists' conscience rights

Excerpted from "Illinois cannot make pharmacists give 'morning after' pill: court," Reuters, Sep. 21, 2012--An Illinois appellate court Friday affirmed a lower court finding that the state cannot force pharmacies and pharmacists to sell emergency contraceptives - also known as "morning after pills" - if they have religious objections. In 2005, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich mandated that all pharmacists and pharmacies sell "Plan B," the brand name for a drug designed to prevent pregnancy following unprotected sex or a known or suspected contraceptive failure if taken within 72 hours.

Some anti-abortion advocates object to the drugs, which work by preventing the release of an egg, preventing fertilization or stopping a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus. In 2011, an Illinois judge entered an injunction against the rule, finding no evidence that the drugs had ever been denied on religious grounds, and that the law was not neutral since it was designed to target religious objectors.

The Illinois appellate court agreed that the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act protects pharmacists' decision not to dispense the contraceptives due to their beliefs. "This decision is a great victory for religious freedom," said Mark Rienzi, senior counsel for the Becket Fund, quoted in a statement about the decision. The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which had filed an amicus brief on behalf of the state, expressed dismay at the court's decision.

Commentary

CMA Vice President for Government Relations Jonathan Imbody: "Pro-life legal groups represented the Christian Medical Association in two amici curiae (friend of the court) briefs in this case. Our briefs, written by the Christian Legal Society (CLS) and Americans United for Life (AUL), argued the following:

"CLS brief: The government is prohibited from coercing health care workers to provide health care services that violate their religious beliefs. The rule violates plaintiffs' rights under the Illinois Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The rule substantially burdens the plaintiffs' free exercise of religion and is not narrowly tailored to advance the government's purported interest. The circuit court properly held that the rule is not narrowly tailored; nor is it the least restrictive means of achieving its interest.

"AUL brief: There is no 'problem' of access to 'emergency contraception.' The potential post-fertilization effect of 'emergency contraception' is objectionable to a large number of health care providers and provides ground for the right to object to its provision. The Right of Conscience is guaranteed under the Illinois Healthcare Right of Conscience Act and the Illinois Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The Right of Conscience is a historical right supported by the First Amendment.

"Thankfully in this case, the court recognized that the government of Illinois overreached in asserting its power over the religious liberty interests of pharmacists. Now we need a similar handcuffing of the federal government, which under the new health care reform law has wrongly asserted a coercive contraceptives and sterilization mandate over the religious liberty interests of faith-based nonprofits, educational institutions and other ministries. Next month CMA will be submitting amicus briefs in two consolidated cases--Belmont Abbey College v. Sebelius and Wheaton College v. Sebelius--in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, to protect religious liberties and conscience rights from the Obamacare contraceptives and sterilization mandate. Pray for justice to prevail."