DriveThru – Get What You Need

At last! We’ve discovered the secret behind the vast conspiracy to keep facts out of schools about the Founding Fathers and their beliefs in the benefits of faith, freedom and free enterprise: We now have proof that students who lack knowledge about these basic facts are more likely to form left-wing viewpoints!    

 Just kidding. Well, sort of.

“College Makes Students More Liberal, but Not Smarter About Civics,” reports a headline in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The article cited results of a study released this Wednesday by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

Among other things, the study explains that someone who graduates from college is more likely to “favor same-sex marriage and favor abortion on demand” than someone who shares similar background characteristics, but who doesn’t graduate from college.

However, gaining “civic knowledge—as opposed to merely graduating from college—increases a person’s beliefs in American ideas and free institutions.” Among other things, a person with greater civic knowledge is more likely to understand the benefits of “free enterprise” and the relevance of the Ten Commandments.

Interestingly—on the very same day of this report—data was also released from the Pew Research Center detailing information on the Millennial generation ( people born after 1980). “In their social and political views, young adults are clearly more accepting than older Americans of homosexuality, more inclined to see evolution as the best explanation of human life …” summarized the Pew report.  (Young adults are defined as ages 18-29).

They are also more  accepting of “bigger” government. And “less than half of adults under age 30 say that religion is very important in their lives.”  

These revelations should give us all pause—and make us consider the long-term cost of steeping an entire generation of students in the philosophy that they are nothing more than an accident of nature, that they have no higher destiny than to give into their most basic instincts and that there is nothing special about living in America, nothing costly about the freedom we enjoy.

Sometimes you just have to laugh at the bias one often spots in liberal publications–you know, the usual ape-like caricatures of socially conservative Christians contrasted with the usual sympathetic portrayals of reasonable-sounding liberals. Is this purposeful or just the result of living in an echo chamber? It’s hard to tell.

I couldn’t resist pointing out one small example of this biased approach to news. An article published in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine goes into great detail describing the “shiny pate” and other characteristics of a conservative Christian sitting on the Texas State Board of Education.

Despite all this detail though, information is noticeably sparse on one of the main sources—Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network— used by the Times to counteract the social conservatives’ viewpoints.

It’s rather humorous—in a sad kind of way—that the Texas Freedom Network (TFN) is described by the Times with only two words— “watchdog group.” A simple internet research reveals that TFN—which adamantly opposes mainstream ideas like school choice and abstinence teaching— has strong links to Planned Parenthood. It was founded by Cecile Richards, former deputy chief of staff for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and daughter of the famously liberal former Texas Governor, Ann Richards. Cecile Richards is also the current president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and still serves on the board of TFN.

Kathy Miller, the current president of TFN—also sparsely identified by the Times as “the watchdog”—formerly served as a public affairs director for a Planned Parenthood state affiliate. So a more honest description of TFN would have been a “liberal pro-abortion group.”

Despite this obvious bias however, the Times did acknowledge some objective facts about our nation’s history.

Five out of 12 major anti-family policies in the omnibus spending bill are related to funding abortions and liberalizing sex education. You can thank bill-supporting Members of Congress (House, Senate) and our President for the following “gifts” just before Christmas 2009:

• Elimination of abstinence education funds ($zero$)
• Funding for Planned Parenthood (Title X funding boost to $315M)
• Publicly funded abortions for D.C. residents in our nation’s Capitol
• U.S. funding for U.N. population control, including China’s one-child policy and subsequent abortions (U.S. Taxpayers will pay $5M more)
• International family planning – fund overseas abortions – Mexico City Policy – ($103M more)

The Heritage Foundation posted a Web article titled, “Twelve Anti-Family Gifts From Congress,” [Dec. 22, 2009],   that lists another seven egregious funds and policies passed in by Congress in the omnibus spending bill. Policies such as more funding to keep people on welfare, needle exchange, limiting free speech, ending D.C. scholarship program, domestic partner benefits for D.C. employees and legalized “medical” marijuana … “high” in a pear treeeeee …

Supporting Members of Congress voted in favor of this bill, and President Obama signed it into law. We certainly hope they enjoy all the Piggy Pudding they passed in the $1.1 Trillion Pork-nibus spending bill with more than 5,000 earmarks.

Though this battle was lost in 2009, the war is far from over in 2010.

MORE INFORMATION

• See a PDF of The Heritage Foundation’s Twelve Anti-Family Gifts From Congress … 
• See Appendix for 2010 Budget of the U.S. Government … 
• See Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010 – H.R. 3288 (omnibus spending bill) …  [PDF]

While Saturday night’s 60-39 vote to move the health care bill forward was disappointing, all is not lost. 

Americans have all this week, while their senators are home for the Thanksgiving break, to contact local offices and urge their senators to vote NO on the 60-vote hurdle coming up after the holiday.  Did we mention the bill still includes federal funding of elective abortion? Yes, it does.  And we now know that the “reform” will cost far more than the $849 billion that the Dems are touting.  

So eat a lot of turkey this Thanksgiving, and while you’re at it, make a quick phone call to your senators’ local offices and say “vote NO” on the next health care vote coming up.  Just go here, type in your zip code, and then click on your senators’ names to find the contact information for their state offices.  Quick and easy.

Remember when President Obama said that under his health care plan (the Democrat plan), no federal dollars will be used to pay for abortion? 

And remember how Democrats repeatedly told constituents concerned about abortion funding in health care that the Hyde Amendment  “will not change,” – leading many constituents to believe that the Hyde Amendment would keep federal dollars from going toward abortion or plans that cover abortion? 

The message the Democrats have been sending to the public is don’t worry, we took care of it.  No federal funding of abortion.  No problem.

Well, last Saturday, 64 Democrats and 176 Republicans took the extra step to make sure that the government health care plan didn’t fund abortion.  They passed the Stupak/Pitts amendment which guaranteed that no federal dollars would pay for abortion or any health care plan that covers abortion.

And out of nowhere, Democrats are mad, mad, madder than my mom was when one time I threw a rock at her car because I didn’t want to leave a friend’s house.

Why would they care? Didn’t the Democrats’ health care bill already exclude abortion funding? Didn’t the President promise that no federal dollars would be used to pay for abortion? (Yes).  So why all the complaining over an amendment that simply codified what Democrats were saying was already in place?  

Because, as we’ve known all along, they prevaricated.

Here’s a quick recap from Saturday’s vote on health care reform.

The House of Representatives passed its version of government health care “reform” 220-215.  39 Democrats and 176 Republicans voted against the bill.  219 Democrats joined 1 Republican, Joseph Cao (Louisiana), to pass the bill. 

The Stupak/Pitts amendment that would prohibit federal funds from being used to pay for abortion or to cover any part of the costs of a health plan that includes abortion coverage, also passed, 240-194.  64 Democrats and 176 Republicans voted in favor.  One lone Republican, John Shadegg, voted “present.”  This vote is a win for pro-lifers — in a Democrat-controlled Congress.  Are those pigs flying?

And yes, it’s possible that the Stupak amendment could be stripped out in conference committee when the two chambers work out the differences in their versions.  But health care  “reform” has to clear the Senate first.

Moving forward, we await the unveiling of Senate Democrats’ version of health care.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) says  he’ll release it after the Congressional Budget Office finishes tallying the cost of the plan, and that his version will “look markedly different” from the House bill.  Interestingly, Senator Joe Lieberman is promising to keep the bill from coming to the floor if it contains a public option plan.

I’ve mentioned it before but it bears repeating:  the only thing Americans oppose more than government health care is government health care that funds abortion.  Perhaps the Senate will listen.

It seems that Rep. Brad Ellsworth, an Indiana Democrat who traditionally votes pro-life, is helping the Democrat majority work up “compromise” language to exclude abortion funding from the health care bill.

Only funny thing, the proposed language doesn’t actually exclude abortion funding.

No surprise there.  Democrats tried already—via the Capps Amendment—to change the bill to make it “sound” like they weren’t using federal funds to pay for abortions.  We didn’t go for that attempt, either.

Perhaps Democrats on the Hill think that pro-life activists, pro-life Americans and pro-life lawmakers cannot identify a phony pro-life amendment when we see one? 

The only thing that will work is for Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer to allow a vote on the Stupak-Pitts amendment.  The real pro-life amendment.  The one that would ensure that no federal funds are used for abortion and plans that cover abortion. 

One has to wonder what Rep. Ellsworth was up to—did he cut a deal with his party?  We don’t know.  What we do know is that the House health care bill still explicitly funds abortion and not even a good, pro-life Democrat can make us believe otherwise.

Sometimes, when I’ve failed to respond to a coworker’s email and I’m called out on it, I’ll say, “Oh, shoot. I wrote the email in my head but never sent it.”

Anyway.

Remember when the President told a joint session of Congress that “under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions”? And remember how we were like—ohmygoodnessdidhejustsaythat? Because it sounded like great news.  ::: cue the trumpets :::

Well, he took a page out of my book and apparently wrote a health care proposal in his head and never produced it.  And, according to the president, that’s the bill in which no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.  Get it?

Because when Democrat Congressman Bart Stupak called the president after the joint session speech to explain to Obama that—ahem—the House bill actually did include federal funding for abortions, the president explained that he wasn’t talking about the House bill.  He was talking about his own plan.

What plan? The plan that he hasn’t produced yet.  The one we haven’t seen. The one that’s nowhere to be found. The one that’s apparently different from the 5 other versions that House and Senate committees have considered?

So, Mr. President, if you really do have your *own* health care proposal that specifically excludes federal funding of abortion, we’d love to see it.

Fact:  71 percent of Americans don’t want their tax dollars being used to pay for abortions under the government health care proposal.

Fact:  150,000 Americans signed a Focus Action petition to their lawmakers asking them to keep government funding of abortion out of the health care bills.

Fact:  The current health care bills still include government funding of abortion.

Fact:  Congress needs a wake-up call.

So what did Focus on the Family Action do about all this? We took those 150,000 petitions straight to Capitol Hill.  And the media showed up.  And so did 10 U.S. representatives and senators.  And collectively, we called on Congress to listen to the voices of tens of millions of Americans across this country who do not want their tax dollars being used to pay for abortions in any government health care plan.

On hand to speak on behalf of Focus on the Family Action was Tom Minnery, Senior Vice President of Government and Public Policy, and he was joined by almost a dozen lawmakers, like Senators Sam Brownback and Jim DeMint, and Representatives Eric Cantor, Mike Pence, Mary Fallin, and Lincoln Davis.

And every single petition was hand-delivered to the appropriate lawmaker.  I know that–because I was part of the team who delivered them.  What a great experience.

You can watch the entire news conference here or just watch our Focus Action Update video summary of the conference.  If video’s not your thing, you can simply read our wrap-up of the press conference and petition delivery

We’ll be watching what our lawmakers do as a health care bill (yet to be determined) heads to both chambers of Congress for a vote.  We hope and expect that there will be some maneuvering by pro-life lawmakers in the House and the Senate to offer language that would exclude abortion funding from the bill, since all other attempts in committee were voted down by the pro-abortion Democrat majority.

And late last week, Democrat Alan Mollohan was joined by 29 other House Democrats in sending a letter to Speaker Pelosi asking her to adopt language similar to the Hyde Amendment that would prevent federal funds from being used for abortion.  This letter is the third group letter signed by pro-life Democrats concerned about abortion in health care reform.  Will Democrat leadership in the House listen this time?

About once a year, the Guttmacher Institute (which operates as the research arm of the abortion industry) releases a report on the number of illegal abortions in the world and uses the report to argue for legalizing abortion in those nations.  The latest report was released yesterday.

Abortions are illegal in many developing nations, including in Latin America and Africa.  Guttmacher’s report contends that making abortion legal in these places would make abortion safe – thus saving women’s lives.  (This apart from the fact that abortion is always fatal for the woman’s preborn baby.)  

Yet, a broader look at the status of overall medical care in these developing nations leads to a different conclusion: it’s a lack of sanitary, quality medical care, including obstetrical care, that brings about a high mortality rate for women surrounding pregnancy – not bans on abortion.  

This is documented in an on-line report by Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Global Outreach entitled, “Does legalizing abortion protect women’s health?”   Its research found that the best way to reduce maternal mortality is to provide women in developing nation’s access to the same quality health care available to women in developed ones.

Experience tells us that legalized abortion leads to more abortion, and in developing countries without adequate medical care, more women would die or be harmed if abortion is liberalized.  Women in developing nations don’t need abortion; they need clean water, food and education for their children. The Guttmacher Institute should get in touch with the real needs of these women and stop promoting death for their children instead.