Action Alert: House (Hyde-Weldon) Protects Health Care Providers on Abortion, Senate Will Battle!

Life News.com | 11.20.04

[Coleus]

House Protects Health Care Providers on Abortion, Senate Will Battle

The U.S. House of Representatives on Saturday passed a federal spending bill containing a provision that protects pro-life health care providers who opt against performing or paying for abortions.

The Hyde-Weldon anti-discrimination amendment ensures that state and local governments receiving money from the federal Health and Human Services Department cannot discriminate against health care providers that do not perform abortions, pay for abortions, provide insurance coverage for abortions or refer to agencies that perform abortions.

The provision covers doctors and other health care professionals, hospitals, insurance companies, and others.

Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee said the pro-life provision is important because it will "prevent state and local government officials from compelling health care providers to participate in killing unborn children."

However, abortion advocates are upset that the measure was added to the bill and groups like NARAL, NOW and Planned Parenthood have pledged to attempt to remove it as the Senate considers the spending legislation.

Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who backs abortion, promised she would employ procedural tactics in the Senate to stop other legislative business unless the provision was changed or deleted.

"I am willing to stand on my feet and slow this thing down," Boxer told the Associated Press. "Everyone wants to go home, I know that, and I know I will not win a popularity contest in the Senate. But they should not be doing this. On a huge spending bill they're writing law, and they're taking away rights from women."

Boxer said she complained to Senator Ted Stevens, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee.

However, according to AP report, Stevens told her that House Republican leaders wanted the provision to stay and that he doesn't intend to remove it when the Senate considers the bill this coming week.

Nine senators, including eight Democrats and pro-abortion Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine, also wrote to Stevens urging him to change or remove the language.

President Bush strongly supports the Hyde-Weldon provision.

In a letter to members of Congress earlier this week, the Bush administration wrote that the president "strongly supports language added by the House to ensure that health care providers are not discriminated against because they do not provide, pay for, or cover abortions."

The Hyde-Weldon provision is named after its House sponsors, pro-life Reps. Henry Hyde of Illinois and Dave Weldon, of Florida.

ACTION: Contact your two senators and urge strong support for keeping the Hyde-Weldon provision in place. You can call any Senator at 202-224-3121 or find specific contact information for yours at this link.

National Right to Life urges U.S. House of Representatives to protect conscience rights of health-care providers

Key Pro-Life Anti-Discrimination Provision

ACTION ALERT: September 3, 2004 - Massachusetts Citizens For Life

Fact Sheet: ACLU's Misrepresentations about the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act

USCCB: Abortion Non-Discrimination/Conscience Rights

Background: Hyde/Weldon Conscience Protection Amendment in the Labor/HHS Appropriations Bill

Catholic, House DemonCrap Leader Nancy Pelosi: "Roe v. Wade is the Law of the Land, But Republicans are Gutting It Step by Step"

Background: Hyde/Weldon Conscience Protection Amendment in the Labor/HHS Appropriations Bill

[America1stParty]

Thank God for a few men and women with character and a love for America in government.

I consider Henry Hyde to be one of those.

[gab1279]

Pro-life ping :-)

[NonValueAdded]

Hey, that's my congresscritter! Way to go Dr. Dave!

[26lemoncharlie]

Catholic, House DemonCrap Leader Nancy Pelosi: "Roe v. Wade is the Law of the Land, But Republicans are Gutting It Step by Step"


"Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the Weldon amendment, an extraordinary sneak attack on women's rights and a disgraceful display of ideology over health.
Nancy Pelosi:
"This language is a radical change in policy that the House has not debated on the floor, and the Senate has never considered, debated, or voted on. Republicans simply slipped it into the appropriations bill when they thought no one was looking. It is entirely outside of the scope of this omnibus spending bill. Yet it is a part of a 'must-pass' bill at the insistence of House Republican leaders.

Neither has Roe V Wade made it to the Floor of the House and the Senate to be debated. More Legislation from the Bench. Pelosi is a Secular Socialist A$$ that needs removed from the House.

[Guenevere]

Dave Weldon is my very own Congressman!!...and a solid Christian!

Unlike Bill Nelson (who is also from this county--and tried to fool many of us)......Weldon is very respected.

[narses]

Action Ping.

[Coleus]

Neither has Roe V Wade made it to the Floor of the House and the Senate to be debated. More Legislation from the Bench. Pelosi is a Secular Socialist A$$ that needs removed from the House. >>

Right on all accounts and to add that she should also become excommunicated from the RCC for her harsh abortion positions.

Roe v. wade was never based on a bill passed by the house and senate, the SCOTUS used the 9th amendment and an unwritten so-called right of "privacy" to base their decision, without using the 5th and 14th amemdments to a right to life and equal protection, just more judicial activism by the humanists/satanists/Marxists on the bench.

[26lemoncharlie]

We must move to remove them from their DICTATORIAL PERCHES

[topher]

Sorry that I did not ping you, narses...

[topher]

Senate passed this Saturday Night, Roll Call Number 215 of 2nd session of 108th Congress for Senate.

Some of the Senators that complained about it, voted for the Omnibus legislation -- pork was more important than Pro-Abortion views.

But I have not seen a follow on article that this is passed by the Senate and headed for the President's desk for signature...

[narses]

S'ok, I found my way here anyhow.

[Holden Magroin]

A recently passed California law requires Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. Would this proposed federal law undo the California law?

The cynic in me says that big-spending Republicans inserted this clause to force conservatives to vote for entire bill.

[Coleus]

The cynic in me says that big-spending Republicans inserted this clause to force conservatives to vote for entire bill. >>

you're probably right.

[Coleus]

But I have not seen a follow on article that this is passed by the Senate and headed for the President's desk for signature... >>

Right, you did not see an article passed by the senate because the house version passed only on Sat. Afternoon, that is precisely why I have the "action" in RED so we can contact our Senators. Did you click the link and contact your 2 US senators?

[Coleus]

Fight Not Over on Measure Protecting Health Care Providers on Abortion

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 22, 2004

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The fight isn't over on a measure that protects health care providers who do not want to perform, pay for or provide insurance coverage for abortions. A leading pro-abortion Senator is expected to put forward a bill that would overturn the measure.

Over the weekend, the House and Senate gave final approval to a Congressional spending bill containing the Hyde-Weldon anti-discrimination amendment.

The provision ensures that state and local governments receiving money from the federal Health and Human Services Department cannot discriminate against health care providers that do not perform abortions, pay for abortions, provide insurance coverage for abortions or refer to agencies that perform abortions.

All that is necessary for the measure to become law is for the larger bill to be signed by the president, which is expected in the next couple of weeks after some unrelated issues are resolved.

The measure was originally passed by the House of Representatives as a stand-alone bill known as the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (ANDA) but it never received a Senate vote.

Pro-abortion lawmakers, led by Barbara Boxer of California, are upset that the measure was added to the spending bill without a full Senate vote.

On Saturday, Boxer pledged to use procedural tactics to stall the spending bill. However, she relented after Senate Republican leaders promised her a vote on a bill to overturn the Hyde-Weldon measure.

That was a smart move according to Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee who says such a bill by Boxer would never succeed.

"Senator Boxer was promised a vote on a bill to repeal the law, but this is of little consequence," Johnson told LifeNews.com. "Even if such a bill passes the Senate, which is doubtful, it would not pass the House, nor receive the President's signature."

The House previously passed the bill with a 229-to-189 vote in September 2002.

Pro-life groups say the measures is necessary because abortion advocates are working feverishly to require hospitals and insurance companies to perform or pay for abortions.

Pro-life Representative Dave Weldon (R-FL), a doctor by profession, sponsored the ANDA bill in the House.

Weldon described a campaign by the NARAL's Maryland affiliate to require hospitals in the state to perform abortion. He also pointed out pro-abortion efforts to sue a Catholic hospital in New Jersey and to lobby courts in Alaska to require a private nonsectarian hospital to perform abortions.

"Under this new law, no agency or official of any government will be permitted to penalize, in any way, any health care provider for refusing to provide, pay for, or refer for abortions," Johnson told LifeNews.com.

Currently, 86 percent of American hospitals do not allow abortions to be performed.

[Coleus]

.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

"I am willing to stand on my feet and slow this thing down," Boxer told the Associated Press. "Everyone wants to go home, I know that, and I know I will not win a popularity contest in the Senate. But they should not be doing this. On a huge spending bill they're writing law, and they're taking away rights from women."

Would somebody please tell this dingbat that a woman's so-called right to choose to kill her unborn child would remain unaffected in any way. Or she may perfectly well know that, but wants to lie and demagogue. Either way, the Voice of the Fishes Who Have no Voice should just shut up and leave...

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The cynic in me says that big-spending Republicans inserted this clause to force conservatives to vote for entire bill.

My votes would be: Clause, yes; Entire Bill, no.