Home > News > God & Country > Rep. Rosa DeLauro: Obama Can Find Common Ground on Abortion

Rep. Rosa DeLauro: Obama Can Find Common Ground on Abortion

Reader Comments
Back to blog

Rosa DeLauro presented Bill875 a year ago. She also stands behind the so very dangerous Heath Care Bill HR3200. This bill, nearly 1200 pages contains proposals of mandated: abortions, euthanisia and RIFD-chipping.
Bill 875 will forbid any form of: natural food and farming: no pesticides, no hormones in cow's, just as nature can let us grow food whithout chemical stuff are forbidden.
Rosa is married to Monsanto-man Stan Greenberg, and that takes our hope away of natural grown food.
I'm from the Netherlands and I'm able to see what's going on in the world.
Monsanto rules the world!!!

Annelies 12:31AM March 07, 2010

Yes, obviously I erred in thinking that Douglas Johnson would put more thought into his comments (But then, of course, he would have time to do research about how much Planned Parenthood does to support women, or to talk to the women who are eternally grateful for Planned Parenthood's support, which does include prenatal care and all kinds of other healthcare. But it is much easier and takes less time to paint them as heartless baby killers) Regardless, I'm glad I brought him mirth.
He says NRLC has no position about contraception. But that's the whole point -- if they really thought terminating a pregnancy is child murder, then they would have a strong position in FAVOR of contraception and would back any legislation that expands access. It just doesn't make any sense for NRLC and the other groups of their kind to not fully and unequivocally back the availability of contraception. Why wouldn't they want women to avoid crisis pregnancies altogether?
It's clear that in countries where contraception is readily available and there is good sex education, abortion rates are low, and in countries where contraception is unavailable, even where women know they risk their lives in getting illegal abortions, the abortion rate is high.
It's simple - we KNOW how to reduce the number of abortions, the evidence is there. The coercive policies that NRLC promotes just don't work - they just make things more difficult for women who have enough to deal with already. But then, punishing women is part of the plan, right?

Mary Beth of DC 6:06PM August 21, 2009

I would have responded sooner, but it took me awhile to recover from the mirth induced by Mary Beth's imagining that my original posts consumed "hours."
The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) is a "single-issue" organization, devoted to protecting the right to life of human beings who already exist. NRLC takes no position for or against contraception, or on federal funding of contraception. We do favor directing any such federal funds to organizations that don't have as their operational doctrine that abortion is just another method of birth control.
As to Karen's comments on the Capps Amendment: The amendment was written artfully by veteran staffers to pro-abortion champion Rep. Henry Waxman. Since we have more than 35 years experience in federal laws and regulatory policy on abortion, I can assure you that we are not misreading it. It is explicitly authorizes the proposed new nationwide government insurance plan to cover all elective abortions, from day one. And Barack Obama has promised that is exactly what they will do (see his quotes below).
This means that every citizen who wants to take advantage of the public plan would be compelled to purchase coverage for abortion on demand. The Capps Amendment explicitly requires every enrollee must be charged an extra fee to cover the abortions; this is not optional. The federal agency will collect the premium money, receive bills from abortionists, and send the abortionists payment checks drawn on a federal account. You wish to rest your case on a semantic distinction that these government-collected, government-expended funds will not be called "taxes," but that won't wash -- it is a sham to pretend that this does not constitute funding of abortion. This is not a Hyde Amendment, but an inversion of the Hyde Amendment.
As Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (who, I am happy to see, also must have spent "hours" composing a comment in this thread) wrote recently, "We all know the abortion stance of the current HHS Secretary; we can reasonably predict that broad abortion coverage will be mandated. And the important word here is 'must': Any American who signs on to the public (federal government-run) plan MUST pay for these abortions through his or her premium. If the government is making you pay for other people's abortions as a condition for getting into your government's health plan, even if you find abortion morally abhorrent, can you really make the moral problem go away by waving your hands and calling it a premium rather than a tax?"
Again, if you're serious about getting to the bottom of this, read the technical memo on our website, and the underlying primary documents.
Douglas Johnson
National Right to Life Committee
Washington, D.C.
Legfederal--at--aol.com

Douglas Johnson of DC 11:24AM August 19, 2009

This really exposes the anti-abortion movement - guess what, they don't actually think abortion is child murder! See, most abortions result from unintended pregnancies and since the vast majority of adults are sexually active, using contraception is a great way to prevent unintended pregnancies (my IUD is something like 98% effective - woo hoo!). So if you really thought something was child murder, wouldn't you go around preaching from the rooftops about the glories of contraception? Wouldn't you stand on the corner all day making sure people had access to contraception and making sure people knew how to use it? Wouldn't you make sure people have access to emergency contraception? (even if you thought it sometime causes the loss of a fertilized egg, which you believed is equivalent to child murder, you would think it's better to prevent ovulation and thus an unintended pregnancy in the majority of those cases).
Wait a minute, they aren't doing that? How can that be? How can they actually oppose any effort to expand access to contraception? Well, they say it's because of that evil Planned Parenthood - that's why they don't support contraceptive access, because Planned Parenthood will get the money! Why then, haven't they started the Pro-Life Network of Contraceptive Providers? It should be across the country and providing birth control like crazy!
Because the truth is, they see something as worse than abortion - worse than what they claim to view as child murder. Having sex without wanting to be pregnant must be worse than abortion, otherwise Douglas Johnson would spend his energy promoting contraceptive access rather than spending hours submitting multiple comments in response to this blog.

Mary Beth of DC 12:38PM August 18, 2009

ComPassion: Wow. That's an amazing misreading of the Capps amendment. In fact, the Capps amendment states that federal funds CAN'T be used for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or for the life or health of the mother (which is consistant with Roe v. Wade and how Medicaid works, and also consistant with public opinion). It also states that insurers would neither be required to, nor prohibited from, offering abortion coverage, but again federal funds can't be used to pay for the procedure.
Politifact is a non-partisan fact-checking service. Here's what they had to say about the amendment and claims about an 'abortion mandate': http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/aug/07/john-boehner/boehner-says-democrats-health-care-plan-would-lead/

Karen of DC 10:54AM August 18, 2009

There is a true "common ground" proposal in Congress, the Pregnant Women Support Act introduced by Democrats Bob Casey and Lincoln Davis. The Ryan/deLauro bill is a sham, crafted with the help of the abortion industry to ensure that it will never reduce abortions but only increase the power of that same industry. Even the "teen pregnancy prevention" segment of the bill (Title III) states explicitly that its goal is NOT to reduce abortions but to reduce "teen pregnancy and teen BIRTHS."
Aside from the massive contraception funding, sections of the bill that deal with pregnant women are crafted to ensure that they will not reduce abortions. For example,the Pregnant Women Support Act has a provision for offering aid to pregnant college students so they can finish school and get help with carrying to term and parenting. The parallel provision in the Ryan/DeLauro bill has been carefully changed, so the services are ONLY offered to students who had already decided to carry to term (we can't go around reducing any young women's enthusiasm for abortion, after all), and the services offered to THOSE students are so vaguely and broadly defined that they can include abortion referrals. Both bills have a grant program for allowing health centers to purchase ultrasound machines; but the Ryan/DeLauro bill deletes the provision in the Pregnant Women Support Act saying that the center has to let the pregnant woman see the ultrasound if she wants to. So in Ryan/DeLauro, the machines are present for the medical center's benefit, allowing it to more efficiently detect any defects and perform abortions with ultrasound guidance. Ryan/deLauro also deletes the PWSA's provisions to ensure informed consent for women at abortion clinics (including information on alternatives), and its provision for codifying "unborn child" coverage in the federal Children's Health Insurance Program so needy pregnant women can access prenatal care regardless of immigration status. Anything in the PWSA that could actually lead a pregnant woman to opt for live birth instead of abortion is changed or deleted in the Ryan/deLauro bill, in favor of provisions that expand funding for abortion-promoting organizations like Planned Parenthood and increase their hold on the education, attitdes and behavior of minors.
To say the bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing is an insult to sheep's clothing -- its ideology is in full display for anyone who actually reads the bill alongside the PWSA.
The Pregnant Women Support Act places no limits on abortion or contraception. It is dedicated to the true common ground that everyone should be able to agree on: A pregnant woman in the United States should never feel that abortion is her ONLY choice, that she is compelled by financial or other circumstances to have an abortion she doesn't really want. Apparently this common ground is a threat to the abortion industry, so they had their allies in Congress introduce this mockery.

Richard Doerflinger of DC 9:52AM August 18, 2009

As for Barack Obama, this might be a good time to review his explicit commitments to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund (July 17, 2007). Speaking of his plans for “health care reform,” Obama said, “In my mind, reproductive care is essential care. It is basic care, and so it is at the center and at the heart of the plan that I propose.” He also stated that, “What we're doing is to say that we're gonna set up a public plan that all persons and all women can access if they don't have health insurance. It’ll be a plan that will provide all essential services, including reproductive services.”
In his artfully worded July 21 exchange with Katie Couric of CBS, Obama said nothing to contradict these commitments to Planned Parenthood. Couric asked, "Do you favor a government option that would cover abortions?" Obama answered, "What I think is important, at this stage, is not trying to micromanage what benefits are covered" -- that was swipe at the prolife lawmakers who are trying to amend the health care legislation to deny Obama the power to cover abortions in the new programs. Then Obama said, "As you know, I'm pro-choice. But I think we also have a tradition of, in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of government funded health care." He didn't endorse that "tradition" -- and in fact, he has always opposed it. For documentation, see our detailed memorandum explaining how the Obama-backed bills would radically change federal abortion policy, here:
http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/HR3200NRLCfactsheet.pdf
There is a "common ground" that Rosa DeLauro and Barack Obama seek for the pro-life movement, all right. It is the burial ground.
Douglas Johnson
Legislative Director
National Right to Life Committee
Washington, D.C.
Legfederal-at-aol.com

Douglas Johnson of DC 7:07PM August 17, 2009

A little more on the Capps-Ryan Amendment:
Yes, the Hyde Amendment still prohibits federal Medicaid funds from flowing to Medicaid plans that cover elective abortion, but the two new programs are not Medicaid, and the Hyde Amendment does not cover them, despite what you may have been told to the contrary. NRLC and other authentic pro-life groups are trying to amend the Obama-backed bills to apply a true Hyde policy to the new programs, but the White House, DeLauro, Ryan, and the pro-abortion lobby so far have blocked the pro-life amendments.
Rep. Bart Stupak (Mi.), the leader of pro-life Democrats in the House, branded the Capps-Ryan amendment a "phony compromise.” Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), the leader of the pro-life Republican caucus, said of Mr. Ryan, "He has no right whatsoever to advertise himself as right-to-life." Richard Doerflinger of U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that under the Capps-Ryan amendment, the public plan “must include abortions for any reason if the HHS Secretary (who supports publicly funded abortion) says so.”
Ryan has been real busy lately. On July 7, he and DeLauro joined forces in the House Appropriations Committee to win a vote on removing a longstanding ban on government funding of abortion on demand in the District of Columbia. This was not a vote on some broader bill: Ryan voted specifically against the pro-life Tiahrt-Davis Amendment, and thus, explicitly in favor of allowing the city bureaucracy to use funds appropriated by Congress to pay for abortion on demand. This is the kind of prolifer DeLauro likes to hug: the kind who votes in favor of government funding of abortion.
For those who wish to further explore the question of Ryan's bona fides, we have set up a special webpage on the subject, here: http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/RyanUpdate.html
Douglas Johnson
NRLC Legislative Director

Douglas Johnson of DC 7:01PM August 17, 2009

This is my perspective as legislative director for National Right to Life, the federation of state and local right-to-life organizations: What you see above is part of a sophisticated and well-funded political ploy, intended to advance pro-abortion public policy goals behind a smokescreen of misleading verbiage.
The DeLauro-Ryan bill was actually written at Third Way, a liberal strategy center, under the direction of Rachel Laser, a career pro-abortion activist. Before joining Third Way, Laser was an attorney with the "reproductive rights" project at the National Women's Law Center. Before that she was general counsel to Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, a major abortion provider. Nowadays the capable Ms. Laser continues to pursue the same policy goals by other means, utilizing what in military terminology are termed "false flag operations." By this, I mean that Third Way is devoted to advancing and consolidating the public policy goals of the pro-abortion lobby, with a methodology that employs misleading rhetoric, labels, and props intended to disguise the substance of that agenda, and to provide political camouflage for the pro-abortion politicians who adopt their approach.
Rosa DeLauro is a good representative of the forces that really animate this campaign. Before beingelected to Congress, DeLauro ran EMILY's List, a political action committee that seeks to elect women to office but that has one nonnegotiable requirement: Unqualified support for abortion. EMILY's List has cast off female pro-Roe officeholders for supporting the Hyde Amendment, or the ban on partial-birth abortions. DeLauro was elected to Congress in 1991. Since then, she has voted against the NRLC position 86 times (in agreement with us once, on a bill to bar federal funding of assisted suicide).
Regrettably, it is not true that Rep. Tim Ryan is has been "equally passionate and committed" to the pro-life side. In fact, although Ryan has not cast a pro-life vote since 2006, he continues to impersonate a pro-life lawmaker for the purpose of undercutting the efforts of genuine pro-life members of Congress, of both parties. Most recently, Ryan has been doing the work of the abortion lobby by pushing the Capps Amendment (sometimes called the Capps-Ryan Amendment), a phony compromise to the Obama health care bill. The amendment explicitly authorizes the proposed new federal government insurance plan (the "public plan") to cover all elective abortions from day one, and it also explicitly authorizes the big new federal insurance subsidy funds to flow to private insurance plans that cover abortion on demand.
Douglas Johnson
Legislative Director
National Right to Life Committee
Washington, D.C.
Legfederal-at-aol.com

Douglas Johnson of DC 6:58PM August 17, 2009