National Right to Life Archives

Obamacare Rationing Begins, States Cut Prescription Drug Benefits

August 1, 2012/1 Comment/in Featured, News /by Steven Ertelt

Photo credit: Richard Loyal French

When Democrats in Congress pushed the Obamacare bill through, pro-life groups warned about rationing that could take place as a result. Although liberal groups and the mainstream media laughed at the projections, they are now coming to pass.

A new report from Kaiser Health indicates states are now moving in the director of capping or cutting prescription drug benefits.

Rationing issues in Obamacare have long been a concern of pro-life groups. Although the death panels — the voluntary advanced care planning that pro-life advocates have been concerned about because it could have doctors financially motivated to promote less medical care and lifesaving treatment — occupied most of the debate, the National Right to Life Committee says other provisions cause concern.

NRLC has said Obamacare contains “multiple provisions that will, if fully implemented, result in government-imposed rationing of lifesaving medical care.”

The department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be empowered to impose so-called “quality and efficiency” measures on health care providers, based on recommendations by the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which is directed to force private health care spending below the rate of medical inflation. In many cases treatment that a doctor and patient deem needed or advisable to save that patient’s life or preserve or improve the patient’s health but which runs afoul of the imposed standards will be denied, even if the patient wants to pay for it.

DC Fetal Pain Bill Fails House but Pro-Life Leaders Remain Optimistic

August 1, 2012/0 Comments/in Kathleen's Korner /by Associated Press

A bill that would ban abortions in the District of Columbia after 20 weeks of pregnancy failed to pass the House on Tuesday, but anti-abortion activists hailed the vote as a sign that their efforts ultimately would succeed.

The bill was based on the disputed claim that fetuses can feel pain at a gestational age of 20 weeks or older. The National Right to Life Committee, an anti-abortion group, made the legislation its top priority on Capitol Hill this year. Nine states have passed similar measures, and a federal judge upheld a similar law in Arizona this week.

The vote in favor of the bill was 220-154, with 17 Democrats joining 203 Republicans to support it. But because it was considered under special rules requiring a two-thirds vote for passage, the bill won’t proceed to the Democratic-controlled Senate, where it was unlikely to come up for a vote.

Opponents said the bill was an attempt to roll back a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. Advocacy groups on both sides of the abortion debate were noting how each lawmaker voted, putting members under additional pressure.

“Today’s groundbreaking majority vote constitutes a giant step towards this bill ultimately becoming law,” said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee. He added that the lawmakers who voted against it “will have to explain to their constituents why they voted to endorse a policy of legal abortion for any reason, until the moment of birth, in their nation’s capital.”

House Panel Votes Today on Prohibiting DC Abortions on Unborn Children that feel Pain

July 10, 2012/2 Comments/in Kathleen's Korner /by Steven Ertelt

A House Committee will vote today on a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in the District of Columbia based on scientific evidence showing unborn children feel pain.

Arizona Republican Congressman Trent Franks introduced the District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The bill is similar to a first-in-the-nation law the state of Nebraska passed that successfully drove late-term abortion practitioner LeRoy Carhart to move most of his abortion business to Maryland and bans abortions at 22 weeks gestation (20 weeks post-conception) due to the scientific evidence that not only do unborn children feel pain, they feel it more acutely because pain “dampeners” do not fully develop until 40 weeks gestation, and later.

Currently, in the District of Columbia, abortion is legal for any reason, until the very moment of birth.

According to officials with National Right to Life, at least two abortion providers currently are advertising that they provide abortions in the District past the point that the bill would establish protection – one to 24 weeks after fertilization, and the other during the third trimester, at least to seven and one-half months, and perhaps later.

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