by Legal Staff on February 23, 2010
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 60th 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.
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Here is a story about Abortions and Adoption...
Hillary Clinton and the Mother Teresa Home for Infant Children
Dr. Paul Kengor
Friday, February 26, 2010
A few years ago, I wrote a book on the faith of Hillary Clinton. Released in 2007, the book flopped, dismissed by conservatives who didn’t believe Hillary believed in God and liberals who didn’t care that Hillary believed in God.
I felt compelled to insert a word of caution in the book’s preface: I noted that the Clintons are like a hurricane to those who come near them. I hoped this wasn’t likewise true for their biographers, leaving us, too, in a wreckage of misleading information.
Lo and behold, a possible case in point is provided by reporter Emily Belz in World magazine, in a story getting coverage from only a handful of sources. Belz caught Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s keynote at the National Prayer Breakfast, where Clinton extolled the “common ground” she once found with Mother Teresa. The two had come together to open an adoption center, the Mother Teresa Home for Infant Children, near the northwest section of Washington, DC. In a 30-minute address, Clinton devoted five minutes to the home.
I certainly wasn’t surprised by the reference. The home is a warm example of Hillary Clinton and Mother Teresa—rabid “abortion rights” advocate and tireless abortion opponent—joining in a wonderful cause. Mrs. Clinton touts it whenever she can.
Belz, however, had a thought: Why not call the home to see how things are going? She did just that, only to find it closed—for almost 10 years now.
Hmmm, Clinton and her spokespersons never mentioned that.
Let me back up a bit, to give a fuller glimpse of the saga:
Hillary Clinton’s encounter with Mother Teresa began, ironically, at the National Prayer Breakfast, way back in 1994. That year, the keynoter was a special guest: Mother Teresa. Nearly 3,000 packed a huge room. Near the dais were the president and first lady—the Clintons.
Unlike in typical years, where the keynoter sits among the assembled waiting for others to finish speaking, Mother Teresa appeared from behind a curtain only when called to the platform and then slowly hunched toward the microphone. She began talking about Jesus and John the Baptist in their wombs, about their mothers and how the “unborn child” in the womb of Elizabeth—John—leapt with joy, heralding the arrival of Christ as Mary neared Elizabeth.
Mother Teresa next spoke of love, of selfishness, of a lack of love for the unborn—and a lack of want of the unborn because of selfishness. Then, the gentle sister made this elite group uncomfortable: “But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because Jesus said, ‘If you receive a little child, you receive me.’ So every abortion is the denial of receiving Jesus.”
After an awkward silence, the entire ballroom erupted in a standing ovation that seemed to last minutes. It felt even longer to the embarrassed Clintons (and Al and Tipper Gore), who remained seated and did not clap.
Undeterred by the Clintons’ coldness, the tiny, aged lady was only warming up: “By abortion, the mother does not learn to love,” she admonished, “but kills even her own child to solve her problems.” Abortion was, said Mother, “really a war against the child, and I hate the killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that the mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? ... This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”
Hillary Clinton was shaken. But it wasn’t over.
After the talk, the weak nun persisted, taking the matter directly to the first lady. As Clinton recalled, “[S]he wanted to talk to me. Mother Teresa was unerringly direct. She disagreed with my views on a woman’s right to choose and told me so.”
Mother Teresa said something that resounded with Hillary. She offered an olive branch: “Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Give me the child. I’m willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child.” She said, “I will tell you something beautiful. We are fighting abortion by adoption.”
That was something Hillary Clinton could applaud. She made clear that while she supported legalized abortion, she preferred more adoptions as an alternative. The nun told the first lady she had placed over 3,000 orphaned babies into adoptive homes in India and informed the first lady of her goal of establishing a home in Washington, DC. She invited Hillary to India for a tour, and Mrs. Clinton obliged.
To Hillary’s great credit, when she returned to Washington, she went to bat for Mother, rounding up pro bono lawyers, fighting the DC bureaucracy, telephoning community leaders and pastors, calling them to the White House to see how they could help.
Mother Teresa was equally relentless. When she feared the project was lagging, she sent letters, emissaries and called the first lady. “She called me from Vietnam,” remembered Hillary, “she called me from India, always with the same message: ‘When do I get my center for babies?’”
On June 19, 1995, she got her center. That moment is captured by a photo of Hillary and Mother Teresa smiling and clasping hands in the nursery. Mother Teresa died two years later.
My compliments to Mrs. Clinton: Unlike so many pro-choice liberals who insist they want abortion to be “safe and legal” but “rare,” here was one who finally lifted a finger to promote the birth and adoption of unborn babies rather than feed them into the jaws of Planned Parenthood clinics. Hillary Clinton, lifelong Methodist, did a good work.
It turns out, however, that the work didn’t bear the fruit we hoped. It reportedly lasted a handful of years, closing by 2002. World’s Emily Belz called the Washington, DC, branch of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. The nun who answered didn’t go into details on the home’s closure, noting that the nuns are not permitted to talk to the press, but did confirm that the order sold the Chevy Chase house in 2002.
So, that’s it. The adoption home that Clinton and her advocates have justifiably touted as a genuine display of her Christian compassion has been out of operation for a long time.
This prompts some questions:
Has Mrs. Clinton known that the home has been shut down, all the while boasting about it in books, statements, interviews and no less than the keynote at the 2010 National Prayer Breakfast?
Fox News sought an explanation from Clinton’s spokesman, Philippe Reines, who said: "[Hillary Clinton] remains very proud of her work with Mother Teresa in opening this home in 1995. Their partnership is a success story to be emulated."
Yes, but what kind of success?
This begs another question—actually, more of a request:
Where’s Mrs. Clinton’s commitment? Why not strive to keep the home open? The Clintons know more wealthy liberals than any couple in America. Why not tap into these liberals’ professed compassion for the needy?
I have a sincere suggestion for Mrs. Clinton: What would Mother Teresa have done? This frail little woman got on her mangled hands and knees and fed and held the dying of Calcutta. She declared it “a poverty” when a child died from abortion. Why not rekindle the tenacity Mother Teresa had shown in wanting that home and which Hillary Clinton seemed to share?
With the breathtaking number of abortions performed in the nation’s capital, and with the Obama administration and Pelosi-Reid Democratic Congress having approved taxpayer funding of abortions in the District, there’s an urgent need.
I opened my 2007 book with a quote from Mother Teresa, directed at Mrs. Clinton: “My prayer for you is that you come to understand and have the courage to answer.”
I was thinking of Hillary Clinton’s need to understand the tragedy of abortion. Now I’m also thinking of the need to answer the call to continue one’s service. She stepped up to the plate once. Why not do so again?
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