Posted on 03/21/2010 2:05:09 PM PDT by SirJohnBarleycorn
The Order [Yuval Levin]
Upon first hearing there was talk of an executive order yesterday, I wondered how the administration’s lawyers thought such an order could go beyond the letter of the law in restricting abortion funding. This was a question the Bush administration examined quite extensively on several occasions, and the lawyers involved always agreed that the legal precedents from the time between the Roe decision and passage of the Hyde amendment, as well as some after the Hyde amendment, are extremely clear in stating that federal funds cannot be denied to the provision of abortion except by explicit legislative prohibition. That’s why the Hyde amendment was necessary. But the Hyde amendment wouldn’t apply to this bill, since it applies only to the annual HHS appropriations bill. Hence Stupak’s concern. So what could the White House possibly give Stupak that would not be thrown out by any federal judge in a second?
Looking at the executive order (which you can read here), the answer is clearly nothing. The executive order quite literally does nothing that the Senate bill does not already do, and it is careful to say as much. It offers a kind of narrative of what champions of the bill claim it does with regard to abortion (claims that Rep. Stupak among others has disputed for months), and then says the executive branch will make various people aware of this understanding of what the law says. It orders no action (only the usual promulgation of regulations the law requires anyway) and offers no interpretation beyond that.
If Rep. Stupak and his fellow pro-life Democrats were not satisfied with the protections against taxpayer funding of abortion in the Senate bill (as they rightly were not), there is simply nothing in the text of the order that should change their minds.
There will be a collusion court case between employees of a community health center and a woman demanding an abortion.
NARAL will sponsor a woman in a community health center demanding an abortion.
The center will claim it is not authorized to provide the abortion because of Obama's executive order.
The woman will sue, claiming that she has a right to be provided an abortion as a health care treatment under the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act and that under legal precedents an executive order, not being an act of Congress, is insufficient to provide otherwise.
The court will agree, and the community health centers will provide taxpayer-funded abortions.
Good points.... next they’ll interpret it to mandate abortions when the death panels decide we can’t afford to take care of the baby....
Bart Stupak
If the ‘benefits’ of the bill don’t start for over year nobody can really test anything right away on this can they?
I concur with your analysis ... the EO is a sham, less than wall paper and as stinky as toilet paper
Zero is *the most* anti-life member to ever serve in the US Senate
Don’t know bout that but I do know the AG of Florida is filing suit.
” I wondered how the administration’s lawyers thought such an order could go beyond the letter of the law in restricting abortion funding”
The answer is simple. They knew—and our constitutional messiah knew it, too. He’s played stupak and anyone else who has claimed to be a right to life protector all fools.(Or were they just playing along, too?)
Obviously Chairman Obama considers laws are made to be broken and, after all, HIS word is the new law. All of this is so Biblical, earthquakes in diverse places, unusual weather, the Father of lies. So now America must pay for her sins, and those are legion! It is still not too late to repent of those sins, turn from them, then invite Christ Jesus into our hearts, that He may live in us. After all, because He gave His life to pay for those sins, it is the least we can do for Him. Otherwise, welcome to the Hell on Earth which is surely coming.
And sooner or later the Left will bring a suit like that against a Catholic health provider, and win. Then the RC Church, which dawdled and coddled apostate Catholic politicians like Kennedy, Kerry, et. al., for years and years, will be forced out of health care unless (maybe) they agree to forgo all Federal funding.
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