Americans Are Becoming More Pro-life

Here is an op-ed I wrote that was published in the Reno Gazette Journal last month.

January 28, 2010
Reno Gazette Journal

Don Nelson: Americans Are Becoming More Pro-life

Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Allison Gaulden's op-ed "There are good reasons to celebrate Roe v. Wade" [Voices, Jan. 21] illustrates important differences between pro-life and abortion advocates on abortion issues, and who is shaping the direction America is heading on abortion.

First, Gaulden's reference to German pastor Martin Niemoller speaks volumes. Niemoller lamented that his failure to speak up about injustices against other groups at the hands of the Nazis led to a Holocaust and his own victimization.

Second, it's striking that a Planned Parenthood spokesperson would quote Niemoller. There have been 52 million abortions since Roe and nobody has done more abortions, operates more abortion clinics, advocated or profited more from abortion than Planned Parenthood.

Third, abortion feminists' presumption to speak for women is false. Not only do abortion feminists not speak for women on abortion since more women are pro-life, the founding feminists were, without known exception, opposed to abortion. Susan B. Anthony said that abortion was child murder. She and the early feminists would forcefully oppose the 52 million abortions since Roe and be revolted at celebrations of Roe.

Abortion advocates' opposition to parental notification, waiting periods, bans on partial-birth abortion and taxpayer funding of abortion demonstrates abortion advocates' extremism. These measures are supported by wide majorities of Americans, including many who are pro-choice. So are true informed- consent, anti-coercion screening, conscience rights, alternatives provided by crisis pregnancy centers and laws that treat the unborn as a victim when killed by murderers like Scott Peterson. Abortion advocates oppose them all.

There are good things to celebrate 37 years from Roe. Americans are making steady progress to reduce abortion. The percentage of women having abortions is down one-third. Yearly abortions are down 25 percent while our population increased 20 percent. The ratio of abortions to live births is down. Teen abortions are down a stunning 50 percent!

This dramatic decrease is largely due to the widely supported limitations. The Guttmacher Institute says 35 percent of women who would have aborted didn't because of the ban on taxpayer funding through the Hyde Amendment. Millions of Americans born since 1976 are alive today and owe their lives to these provisions opposed by abortion advocates.

Not only are abortions down, a series of polls also shows that Americans are pro-life and that America's youth are profoundly pro-life. State legislatures have passed hundreds of widely supported laws and regulations. And despite abortion advocates' control of all three branches of government, the Freedom of Choice Act is dead and the health-care bill appears doomed in large part due to the Senate version's abortion funding provisions.

Thirty-seven years from Roe, there are some things to celebrate. America is pro-life, abortions are down and Americans are moving toward a more pro-life policy on abortion.

Don Nelson is president of Nevada LIFE (Life Issues Forum and Education).

Terms "Medically Necessary” Or Medically Appropriate Abortions Means Any Abortion.

Abortion advocates and supporters like Senator Barbara Mikulski use phrases like “medically necessary” or “medically appropriate” abortions or services to hide what they really mean when talking about abortion.  What they really mean is abortion on demand-abortion for any reason that a woman may give for an abortion-not abortion because the unborn presents a threat to the mother’s life or even her physical health.  National Right to Life notes that “with respect to abortion, the term ‘medically necessary’ merely meant that the woman was pregnant and desired an abortion, not that some health-related criteria were involved. (See p. 3)  National Right to Life quotes a former Planned Parenthood VP to substantiate this

 

“In 1993, William Hamilton, vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told Knight-Ridder Newspapers that “medically necessary” abortions include “anything a doctor and a woman construe to be in her best interest, whether prenatal care or abortion” (Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 8, 1993). The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) defined “medically necessary” as “a term which generally includes the broadest range of situations for which a state will fund abortion” (Who Decides? A Reproductive Rights Issues Manual, 1990). A senior Clinton Administration health official told Congress, “When we're talking about medically necessary or appropriate [abortion] services we are also talking about all legal services” (Judith Feder, principal deputy assistant secretary for planning and evaluation, Department of Health and Human Services, Jan. 26, 1994). (See footnote 5)

 

When you hear people like Mikulski talk about "medically necessary" or "medically appropriate" abortions or procedures, it’s code language for abortion on demand-throughout pregnancy for any reason.

Planned Parenthood Accuses But Ducks Debate. Nothing New.

The local and national Planned Parenthood offices have accused opponents of taxpayer funding of abortion  reform of lying, spreading misinformation, scaring and attacking women and more, locally and nationally.  They’ve say this in regards to our claims that current health care proposals will fund abortion.  The Family Research Council has challenged them to a debate.  They won’t anymore than Harry Reid will stand in front of his constituents at a town hall meeting. 

 

From FRC. 

 

“Nearly two weeks ago FRC couriered a letter to the president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, inviting her to debate the question of taxpayer-funded abortion and whether or not citizens would be forced to fund abortion under the current health care reform bills.

 

“We have been met with silence.

 

“Please help us by contacting Ms. Richards and asking her to accept the debate.  Planned Parenthood and their allies continue to mislead the American public about taxpayer funding of abortion in the current health care bills.

 

“We keep insisting that if there isn't a prohibition of federal funding of abortion-like the Hyde Amendment-then federal money will flow into the abortion industry.  This is exactly what Planned Parenthood wants.  They currently receive almost one-third of their clinic income from abortion.

 

“Just think what they would do if even more federal dollars were funneled to them!  Email Ms. Richards today.  Tell her its time she showed up to the debate instead of issuing proclamations through the media.”

  

If you are going to call people liars, accuse them of spreading misinformation, say they are reprehensible, accuse them of using red herrings and call them “evil mongers,” you ought to have the guts to debate. 

What's In Health Care Reform For Planned Parenthood? Money.

Planned Parenthood has been accusing opponents of taxpayer funding abortion through health care reform of lying, spreading misinformation, scaring and attacking women and more, locally and nationally, to keep the truth from coming out that the health care reform plans as written will fund abortion through the taxpayer and our taxes will flow to Planned Parenthood.  Senator Barbara Mikulski has already said that money will go to groups like Planned Parenthood.  What’s in it for Planned Parenthood?  As usual, a boat load of money.  They already received $300 million in taxpayer funding for US operations alone.  Unless abortion is explicitly excluded, it will include abortion too.

Check out this video of Senator Mikulski and Senator Hatch.  Note, when Mikulski says anything deemed medically necessary or appropriate, she means any abortion.  Why can’t they just say abortion and abortion on demand, anytime a woman wants one? 

 

Planned Parenthood in Spokane Fined 700K for Medicaid Overbilling on Abortion

Another Planned Parenthood was charged and this one fined for overbilling Medicaid on abortion.  What else is new?  From the story at LifeNews.com

Planned Parenthood tries to project a professional, ethical image, but they can't stop things like this from popping up and it seems that every month another video surfaces with a Planned Parenthood employee telling a young woman in stings who is pretending to be a teen pregnant by an older man, how to help her sexual predator boyfriend keep from getting caught by the law.  Here's the story on overbilling from LifeNews.com

Spokane, WA (LifeNews.com) -- The Planned Parenthood abortion business in
Spokane, Washington has been hit with a $700,000 fine from the state health
department. The result of an audit by state officials shows it was routinely
overbilling Medicaid for abortions as well as contraception and family planning
services.

According to
the audit, state health officials found Planned Parenthood of Spokane was
"unbundling" abortion claims and falsely billing for doctor visits when
customers were picking up prescriptions.

Mary Emanuel
and Jonathan B, who run the web site Abortion in Washington (AIW), obtained
copies of the audit documents from the Department of Social and Health
Services.

They say they
show Planned Parenthood has been ordered to reimburse the state $630,000 plus
interest for the overpayments.

"The audit did
not get into the question of whether the overbilling was part of a systematic
fraud scheme, but it also was clear that if this practice continued PPS would
lose its Medicaid billing privileges," they write.

AIW says the
audit found five categories of overbilling.

One involved
"unbundling" post-abortion drugs and billing them to Medicaid as family
planning, which is prohibited. The practice appears at odds with longstanding
Planned Parenthood claims that family planning money doesn't pay for abortions
or abortion-related services.

Other cases
included billings for pregnancy tests done on women who never said they thought
they were pregnant and without any indication the tests were medically
necessary. Read more at LifeNews.com.

The Health-Care Bill Will Increase Abortions In The U.S.

This is an opinion I wrote that was published in yesterday's Reno
Gazette Journal regarding the health care reform bills under
consideration in the Congress and the massive increases in the number
of abortions that will occur every year in the United States unless
abortion is explicitly excluded.

Reno Gazette Journal

July 30, 2009

Don Nelson: The Health-Care
Bill Will Increase Abortions In The U.S.

Massive
increases in abortion, the largest since Roe v. Wade, are looming because
health care proposals such as HR 3200, "America's Affordable Health Care
Choice Act," will not only fund abortion, they also will mandate coverage
of abortion on demand in virtually all of America's health care plans, preempt
abortion-reducing state limitations and protections, and create an abortion
clinic mandate. These proposals will reverse America's steady reduction in
abortions.

HR 3200 might
not use the word abortion, but unless Congress excludes abortion from being
defined as an "essential benefit," the broadly worded mandatory
categories of coverage will be interpreted by courts to include abortion. And
that's how President Barack Obama and abortion advocacy groups believe it
should be interpreted.

In July 2007,
Obama told Planned Parenthood that "reproductive care is essential care,
basic care, so it is at the center, the heart of the plan I propose."
Private insurers will "have to abide by the same rules in terms of
providing comprehensive care, including reproductive care..." The Obama
administration said "reproductive care" includes abortion.

HR 3200 also
will create an abortion clinic mandate by requiring plans that use a provider
network to ensure the "adequacy of such network" so enrollees have
access to services covered. And once abortion becomes a federally mandated
"essential benefit," networks will need to take steps, including
establishing new abortion sites in the service area, to meet standards required
by the "health choices commissioner."

HR 3200 will
bring huge increases in abortion. The American taxpayer paid for 300,000
abortions every year between Roe in 1973 and 1976, when the Hyde Amendment
excluded abortion funding. In 1993, the Congressional Budget Office wrote that
"the federal government would probably fund between 325,000-675,000
abortions each year" if taxpayer funding were resumed. It would be much
higher because under HR 3200, populations receiving federally funded health
care would be much larger than populations on which the 1993 estimates were
based.

Abortion advocates'
claims that 18 percent to 35 percent or even 50 percent of women who would have
aborted did not abort because of the Hyde Amendment mean that there could be
200,000-500,000 more abortions every year. Sixty-nine percent of Americans
oppose lifting the Hyde Amendment.

HR 3200 makes
clear that standards in the bill or written by the "Health Choices
Commissioner" will preempt state abortion laws. This could nullify
limitations on abortion such as waiting periods, parental involvement and other
laws that could be regarded as impeding access to a federally guaranteed
benefit. (There wasn't room for this comment we submitted: These protections
and limitations, along with Hyde, have been the backbone in reducing abortions.)

Abortion must
be excluded from any health care reform bill or a massive taxpayer-funded increase
in abortions will ensue.

Don Nelson
is president of Nevada
LIFE (Life Issues Forum and Education).

Learn
More:
Click
here to read National Right to Life's briefing on abortion and health care
reform. The author, Douglas Johnson, is one of the pro-life geniuses and
tireless leaders responsible for the steady, decade's long drop in the rate and
numbers of abortion in the United
States. His policy of specific targeted
goals and public education are very much responsible for America's
pro-life shift.

It's always
an honor to participate in the public square in one of Nevada's most important and vital
newspapers, the Reno Gazette Journal.

No Reason To Fear Life After Roe or Don’t Fear Life After Roe.

It’s election time and the airwaves are flooded with apocalyptic scenarios of what will happen after Roe is overturned.  What will happen after Roe and can we live with it?  Absolutely.

 

1. First, women are not going to jail.  Abortion advocates are playing into the fear that women will go to jail.  These advocates have posted a video on You Tube of pro-life protestors saying that women will go to jail, but those videographers cannot find a single credible pro-life leader who agrees.  

 

The only people talking seriously about women going to jail are abortion advocates.  They are the ones demanding that we put them in jail when Roe is overturned-and for good reason.  Clark Forsythe says “in nearly all of the reported court cases explicitly addressing the issue of whether a woman was an accomplice to her abortion, it was the abortionist (not the prosecutor) who pushed the courts to treat the woman as an accomplice, for the obvious purpose of undermining the state’s criminal case against the abortionist.”

Many abortionists have performed over 30,000 abortions.  Planned Parenthood’s chain of clinics has performed over 3 million.  The goal is to stop abortion and the best way to accomplish that is to stop those who perform them.  The tradition of pursuing the abortionist will continue after Roe.

2. Abortion will not become illegal everywhere.  Some states have not changed their laws to accommodate Roe.  A few have “trigger laws” that will take effect when Roe is overturned.  When Roe is overturned, state legislatures will once again be able to work out laws on abortion, just as they did before Roe invalidated abortion laws in all 50 states. 

 

3. Abortion will be available for certain exceptions.  Before Roe nullified abortion laws in all 50 states, abortion was available for the life of the mother-so one would live and two not die.  In many states, it was available for rape and incest (one percent of abortions).  Polling shows most Americans favor limiting abortion to these exceptions (see www.nevadalife.org).

 

4. Abortion will continue for other reasons once abortion becomes illegal, but in far fewer numbers.  Legalization led to a 1500 percent increase in abortion.  Making abortion illegal in most instances will dramatically reduce abortion, just as other crimes are greatly reduced by being illegal. In Poland, limiting abortion to rape, incest and the life of the mother has reduced abortions more than 99 percent.

 

5. America's back alleys will not turn into rivers of blood.  In 1960, several years before legalization, Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Mary Calderone noted that almost all illegal abortions were performed by licensed physicians in “good standing.”  Thousands of women are not going to die without Roe.  Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of NARAL Pro-choice America says he knew that the claim that 5,000-10,000 women died every year due to illegal abortion was “totally false.”  Abortion deaths were going down before legalization due to advances in trauma care and anti-biotics.  The number of deaths due to abortion the year before Roe was 39. 

 

6. When abortion is illegal, not only will one million lives be saved every year, abortion related pathologies such as death, injury, infection, infertility, premature birth, increased alcohol and drug abuse, the increased risk of breast cancer, post abortion syndrome and many other pathologies will likewise be greatly reduced.  Women facing these decisions can be confident that the network of 3000 pregnancy centers will continue to exist long after Roe.

 

Voters should not fear life after Roe.