AUL

Dear Friend,

I want to update you this morning on the health care battle here in Washington, D.C.

The debate on Capitol Hill is reaching a boiling point. The Democratic leadership in Congress has elected to bypass the accepted conference process – where both Houses of Congress work together to craft a final bill – and are instead working out a secret deal behind closed doors.

Many of us don’t like what politicians do when we can see them, let alone what happens when we can’t.

While the House-passed bill includes the Stupak-Pitts amendment (which prohibits taxpayer funding of abortions), the Senate-passed bill subsidizes insurance plans that cover abortions and, for the first time in history, could allow the federal government to require private insurance plans to cover abortions. With the pro-abortion Democratic leadership calling the shots, the final bill is bound to mirror the Senate’s version.

Thomas Jefferson once said, “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.”

And this is exactly what is at stake here, along with thousands (and perhaps millions) of babies’ lives which currently hang in the balance.

Americans United for Life’s legal team is working tirelessly to ensure that every member of Congress understands the deviously-written abortion language in the Senate bill and knows that this language is contrary to what the vast majority of Americans want.

A recent national Quinnipiac University poll found that 72% of voters don’t want public funding for abortion in the bill, and yet Congress continues to ignore the will of the American people.

Last week, AUL Staff Counsel Mary Harned briefed Capitol Hill staff members on the problems with the Senate bill. She presented some must-see charts on Abortion in Health Care which you can see by clicking here and here.

I know that there is much more to be done.

I also know that this fight is far from over, and if we all continue to put pressure on Washington, we will win this battle for life.

And, on that note, I want to remind you that we have a major opportunity coming up next week. The national March for Life in Washington, D.C. takes place on January 22nd, and we would love to hear from you if you are planning on attending.

Finally, we are working on an exciting new project that will give you the opportunity to participate in the March for Life, even if you cannot make it to D.C., so stay tuned for more information over the next few days.

As always, thank you for your generous and faithful support, which helps us to defend life here in Washington, D.C., across the United States, and around the world.

For life,

Charmaine Yoest


Charmaine

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D.
President & CEO

P.S. I have included below an op-ed that I participated in which ran in the Washington Times recently.

P.P.S. You can now follow me personally on Twitter and Facebook, and follow AUL on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. We're also reachable by e-mail at info@aul.org.


Washington Times

Abortion funding fight far from over

Dr. Charmaine Yoest, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Kristan Hawkins and David Bereit

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so they say. The abortion industry is right in the middle of these desperate times after their leader, President Obama, abandoned them in the midst of the health care debate. By not stepping in to ensure that the Stupak-Pitts amendment, which prevents the government from funding abortion, would not be in the health care bill, he seems to have left them out in the cold.

Maybe not. After the amendment overwhelmingly passed the House did the president step in to say it went too far and that he would work to strip it from health care? The betrayal of Sen. Ben Nelson, Nebraska Demcrat, certainly took a step in the right direction for the president when he caved on a phony abortion compromise that pushed the health care bill through the Senate on Christmas Eve.

But the abortion industry has certainly had its share of heartbreaks as well. Perhaps one of the worst betrayals came from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, an ardent pro-choicer herself, when she left the abortion lobby to fend for itself after letting Stupak-Pitts get to the floor for a vote.

So it's no wonder that Planned Parenthood, NARAL and their allies are using desperate measures to make sure that the government funds abortion through health care. They have supposedly sent coat hangers to the Democrats who voted in favor of the Stupak amendment and have attacked the Catholic Church for standing up for its deeply held conviction and teaching that all life is sacred and that the government shouldn't be funding abortion.

And they are outright trying to deceive the American public on the merits of the Stupak amendment.

Earlier this month, New York Democratic Rep. Nita Lowey claimed that the Stupak-Pitts Amendment "puts new restrictions on women's access to abortion coverage in the private health insurance market even when they would pay premiums with their own money." Just days later, PolitiFact.com issued an analysis and said her comments were "false."

Planned Parenthood's cover has been blown. Before the vote on Stupak-Pitts, there were no uproars from the abortion lobby about government funding of abortion in the health care bill. There were no send-your-legislator-a-hanger campaigns. Why? Because they were hoping this issue would slip under the radar and that the bill would pass without any specific exclusion of abortion, which would ensure that abortion would certainly be funded by the government.

But pro-life groups like ours were making noise and demanding abortion funding be taken out of health care legislation. And we will continue to do so as the House and Senate bills have to be reconciled.

And if it weren't for the Michigan Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak's perseverance and courage - and the courage of those who voted with him - the abortion industry could have very well pulled the wool over the eyes of the majority of Americans who do not want their tax dollars funding abortions.

But it's not over yet, far from it. The Senate bill provides for government-funded abortions and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops calls it "the worst we've seen yet."

These are certainly desperate times. Our nation has come to a well-defined fork in the road. President Obama and Congress can either choose to protect the status quo or fund abortion and ram an unpopular and immensely immoral bill through the legislature. It is our hope that the nation does not choose to fund abortion with government money.

Dr. Charmaine Yoest is president and CEO of Americans United for Life. Marjorie Dannenfelser is president of the Susan B. Anthony List. Kristan Hawkins is executive director of Students for Life. David Bereit is national director of 40 Days for Life.



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Sorry, I'm late getting this out.