Tag Archives: HHS

Podcasts

The return of the Life Training Institute podcast

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Unborn baby scheming about the new LTI podcast
Unborn baby scheming about the new LTI podcast

The LTI podcast features a pro-life look at news, law and policy.

You can grab the MP3 file here. (30 minutes)

Topics:

  • Susan G. Komen and Planned Parenthood
  • HHS forces religious organizations to cover contraception
  • Evangelicals and political engagement
  • Barack Obama: women need abortion in order to be equal
  • what does the Bible say about abortion?
  • do people have intrinsic value?

This podcast does not discuss how Susan G. Komen backed away from their decision to not fund Planned Parenthood after the mainstream media put pressure on them to continue funding the largest abortion provider in the United States. But the LTI  guys are smart – they were skeptical about giving money to Susan G. Komen even after the initial announcement.  Also note that one of the nice things about Scott Klusendorf is that he is an evangelical Christian – not a Roman Catholic. So it’s nice to see an evangelical Christian taking the lead on moral issues – it makes me proud to be an evangelical. Evangelical men ought to be as well informed about moral issues as they are about politics, science and foreign policy.

Susan G. Komen and Planned Parenthood

Mary sent me a story on the Susan G. Komen Foundation that analyzes how they are linked to Planned Parenthood from the Wall Street Journal. It’s by Robbie George of Princeton, so you have to read it!

Excerpt:

The Susan G. Komen Foundation, an organization dedicated since 1982 to fighting, and one day curing, breast cancer, decided to extricate itself from the culture wars by discontinuing grants to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest provider of abortions. The grants Komen had been making amounted to $650,000 last year, funding some 19 local Planned Parenthood programs that offered manual breast exams but only referrals for mammograms performed elsewhere.

The reality is that Planned Parenthood—with annual revenues exceeding $1 billion—does little in the way of screening for breast cancer. But the organization is very much in the business of selling abortions—more than 300,000 in 2010, according to Planned Parenthood. At an average cost of $500, according to various sources including Planned Parenthood’s website, that translates to about $164 million of revenue per year.

So how did Planned Parenthood and its loyal allies in politics and the media react to Komen’s efforts to be neutral in the controversy over abortion?

Faced with even the tiniest depletion in the massive river of funds Planned Parenthood receives yearly, the behemoth mobilized its enormous cultural, media, financial and political apparatus to attack the Komen Foundation in the press, on TV and through social media.

The organization’s allies demonized the charity, attempting to depict the nation’s most prominent anti-breast cancer organization as a bedfellow of religious extremists. A Facebook page was set up to “Defund the Komen Foundation.” In short, Planned Parenthood took breast-cancer victims as hostages.

Komen’s leaders had good reason to believe their organization could disintegrate under Planned Parenthood’s assault. On Friday the charity issued a statement “apologizing to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.” The statement assured Planned Parenthood’s supporters that, like any other organization, it is eligible to apply for grants in the future.

I think the bottom line is this. There are plenty of non-Christians giving money to causes like this. If you are a Christians, you’re much better off giving your money to an organization like Life Training Institute. At the very least, you should all buy “The Case for Life”, which is the best  small book on pro-life apologetics.

By the way, I blogged on the previous LTI podcast here. That one was from March 2010. I hope they make more of these regularly.

News

Will Obama force Catholics to buy insurance that covers abortions?

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Which religions supported Obama most in 2008?
Which religions supported Obama most in 2008?

From CNS News.

Excerpt:

President Barack Obama has not yet decided whether to go forward with a proposed regulation under the health care law he signed last year that would force Catholic individuals and instutions to act against the teachings of the Catholic church.

In August, Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius proposed a regulation–that would take affect next fall–that would require all health care plans to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including abortifacients. The proposed regulation includes a very narrow religious exemption that does not cover individual Catholics, or Catholic universities, hospitals or charitable institutions.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have called the regulation an “unprecedented attack on religious liberty” and have called on American Catholics to contact HHS and demand that the regulation be rescinded.

[…]Because of Obamacare’s mandate that all individuals must buy health insurance, the “preventive services” regulation would mean individual American Catholics would be forced to buy health insurance that pays for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortions–all of which violate Catholic moral teachings.

Many major Catholic institutions and Catholic business owners would be forced to choose between dropping health insurance coverage for their employees and students or violating their religious beliefs.

“Indeed, such nationwide government coercion of religious people and groups to sell, broker, or purchase ‘services’ to which they have a moral or religious objection represents an unprecedented attack on religious liberty,” the bishops said in commentary on the proposed regulation they submitted to HHS.

As an evangelical Protestant, I get so confused when I see many people who label themselves as “Catholic” voting to equate abortion with health care.

Insurance is about sharing costs. Why should people who choose not to have sex outside of marriage (like me) be compelled to pay the bills of people who freely choose to engage in risky, recreational sex? When you subsidize something, you get more of it. So why should pro-lifers be forced subsidize something that we don’t want more of? Why should pro-lifers want to make it less costly for people to engage in behaviors that result in the killing of an innocent child?

News

Hospital told nurses: assist in abortions or lose your job

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From Life News.

Excerpt:

A dozen nurses have filed a lawsuit against their employer, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, which told them they had to either assist in abortions or risk losing their jobs.

The Alliance Defense Fund filed a lawsuit on behalf of 12 nurses in New Jersey who work for a hospital receiving federal health funds who were told they needed to assist abortions or be terminated from their employment. The mandate violates several federal conscience laws and state law, ADF senior legal counsel Matt Bowman tells LifeNews.

“Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” Bowman told LifeNews. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal.”

According to a copy of the complaint ADF sent LifeNews, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey was “demanding that the Nurses must assist abortions in violation of their religious objections or they will be terminated. Defendants have illegally coerced some of the Nurses to train to assist abortions already, and Defendants are presently scheduling the others to do so.”

Keep in mind, though, that the Obama administration is opposed to these conscience protections for pro-life doctors and nurses. Democrats believe that Christians should act like non-Christians in public. They think that it is ok to force their views on Christians, using the power of the law and the courts.