In January, the Senate voted against H.R. 2 (repealing Obama’s health care law) and then in April voted down two resolutions that would have prohibited taxpayer funding for abortion – one blocking taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood and another prohibiting funds for abortion under the health care law. In the wake of these Senate votes, state legislatures are taking control over abortion funding in their own states by enacting “opt-out” legislation and other similar laws.

As recent polls have shown, over 70% of Americans oppose taxpayer funding for abortion and abortion coverage.  The failure of Congress to pass laws that reflect the views and values of the American people has prompted state legislatures to pass their own laws prohibiting taxpayer funding for abortion.

On April 14th, by a 241-185 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a measure to de-fund Planned Parenthood under Obama’s new health care law.  The bill was subsequently defeated in the U.S. Senate by a 42-58 vote later the same day.  Similar to the House bill that would have fully repealed ObamaCare, the defeat of this bill in the Senate was easily predicted and expected.  Although the defeat of the bill de-funding Planned Parenthood may seem to be a pro-life loss, it plays a significant role in the long-term success of pro-life efforts on the legislative level.

The U.S. Senate and House votes on the de-funding bill exposed which senators and representatives favor taxpayer funding for abortion.  This information will be crucial to American voters during the upcoming Senate races.        

The debate surrounding the funding of Planned Parenthood under ObamaCare also fueled the release of recent polling data which show that the majority of Americans oppose taxpayer funding for abortions.  Pro-life America is now equipped with the information it needs to vote for truly pro-life senators in the next round of elections.

There are several “hard cases” that advocates of abortion find difficult to justify. In the recent, The Ethics of Abortion: Women’s Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice (New York/London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, Routledge Annals of Bioethics, 2011), author Christopher Kaczor identifies these contradictions of reason as 8 “hard cases.”  The first two cases he treats, 1. murder of pregnant women, and 2. sex selection abortion, I will consider for this essay and elaborate with material of my own.

Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2, a measure to repeal Obama’s health care law.  Entitled, “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act,” the measure was passed by a 245-189 vote, with unanimous GOP approval.  Today, the House will consider H.R. 2’s companion bill, H.R. 9, which will instruct four House committees to draft new legislation to replace the health care law.  As part of the GOP’s campaign promise to “repeal and replace” ObamaCare, H.R. 9 charges the appropriate House committees with drafting a new health care law that will prohibit denial of coverage for preexisting conditions, reduce medical malpractice suits,  and “prohibit taxpayer funding of abortions and provide conscience protections for health care providers.” 

Introduction

On October 13, a judge in Northern Ireland’s High Court dismissed claims brought by two children seeking damages from the IVF clinic that used mislabeled sperm to inseminate their mother’s eggs, resulting in the children having darker skin than their legal parents.  The parents had desired sperm from a “white” donor to be used in the insemination.  The children attempted to bring forth a “wrongful life” cause of action based on the color of their skin.

I.    Introduction

In his August 24, 2010 order in Sherley v. Sebelius [1],  U.S. district court Judge Royce Lamberth declared that the Obama Administration’s new embryonic stem cell research policy is illegal because it violates the plain language and intent of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment.  For a short time, all federally-funded embryonic stem cell (ESCR) research was halted. 

With the Sherley v. Sebelius case pending, a possible appeal on the horizon, and congressmen introducing legislation to override Dickey before the November elections, the existence of a ban on the use of federal funds for destructive ESCR appears to hang upon a thread.  However, the solid legal reasoning behind Judge Lamberth’s preliminary injunction, the overall public opposition to taxpayer funded ESCR, and other factors may indicate the opposite. 

This article will discuss the district court’s interpretation of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment and other issues affecting the political landscape for ESCR research funding.  Let us begin with a brief summary of important dates and events relevant to the current legal situation:

 Health Care Action Alert 

We have a pro-life statesman in Washington.

And he’s a Democrat.

Pro-Abortion Health Care Bill is Not Dead.

Three troubling facts you should know about:  

By now the whole world (and several worlds beyond) has heard the news that because of the upset election in Massachusetts yesterday, the Senate Democrats have lost their supermajority.  This is indeed extraordinary news, especially for critics of universal health care.

STATUS QUESTIONIS
As you know, the U.S. Senate on December 24 passed its version of universal health care (H.R. 3590: the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”).  Unfortunately, the bill passed with a robust abortion mandate at its center.  Defenders of the unborn had put their political hopes in ‘pro-life’ Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who was threatening to oppose the bill unless Senate leadership included a Stupak-like amendment excluding all federal abortion funding.  Under pressure from the White House and Senate leadership, Nelson broke at the eleventh hour and vowed his support for the bill as amended by Harry Reid’s “Manager’s Amendment.”  The bill passed in a perfect party line vote without a single Republican supporting it.

ETHICAL QUESTIONS A CATHOLIC SHOULD ASK

Dear Friends of a Culture of Life,

We think that significant moral questions are raised by the universal health debate and would like to formulate several for you.  Our purpose is not to draw a one-size-fits-all conclusion about the merits of all current health care bills.  These raise complex questions and there are reasons to support and/or oppose various pieces of different bills. 

The Catholic Church has affirmed for some time a right to a minimum of decent, humane and accessible health care.[1]  This does not imply that a nationalized health care system is a good idea, nor its establishment a fundamental right.  But it does imply that Catholics should work for some kind of improvement or reform in the current system on behalf of those who cannot afford adequate care.

Initiative 1000 in Washington State would legalize assisted suicide, permitting a doctor to give a lethal overdose to a
patient if the doctor feels that the patient is likely to die within six months.

 
“[T]he first thing I will do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.”
Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama
July 17, 2007, Address to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund

Just over a year ago, the public debate over abortion was irrevocably altered.  In the landmark Gonzales v. Carhart decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal ban on partial-birth abortion and, more importantly, abdicated, at least in part, its role as the “National Abortion Control Board.”

Denise M. Burke is the Vice President & Legal Director, Americans United for Life

Over the last few decades, abortion advocates and others have launched a concerted campaign to force hospitals, healthcare institutions, health insurers, and individual healthcare providers to provide, refer for, or pay for elective abortions, abortifacient drugs, contraceptives, assisted reproductive procedures such as in vitro fertilization, and sterilizations.  Their determined effort to eviscerate the concept of individual conscience and the freedom to follow one’s religious, moral or ethical beliefs from the medical profession has resulted in the following:

Apparently responding to Catholic bishops who spoke out in 2004 about the obligations of Catholics in public life to oppose legal abortion, 55 Catholic Democratic members of Congress have released a "Statement of Principles." Though the letter attempts to declare the signatories strong support for the dignity of life the document refuses to call for outlawing abortion and instead declares that "we acknowledge and accept the tension that comes with being in disagreement with the Church in some areas."