After the Alabama state Senate voted to not participate in the abortion funding that will take place under the Obamacare law, legislators then approved a slate of pro-life bills that would limit abortions.
The measures are the first pro-life pieces of legislation to advance in the state Senate, thanks to the 2010 elections allowing pro-life lawmakers control of the body.
The chamber approved SB 298, by Senator Allen, which makes it unlawful to administer any abortion-inducing drug to a woman without her receiving an exam by a physician and would provide a physician with guidelines to follow in administering any abortion-inducing drugs. The bill targets the webcam or telemed abortion process that is generating controversy in Iowa where Planned Parenthood is denying women an in-person consult with a doctor prior to getting the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug that has killed dozens of women worldwide and injured another 1,100 in the U.S. alone as of 2006 FDA figures.
That legislation passed 26-6.
The Senate passed SB 301, by Senator Williams, to defines the term “persons” as used in the Code of Alabama 1975, as including all humans from the moment of fertilization and implantation in the womb. The bill can’t ban abortions, but allows the state to declare that human life begins at that point. The Senate voted 23-7 for that measure.
The chamber also passed SB 308, by Senator Scofield, that requires a physician to perform an ultrasound, provide verbal explanation of the ultrasound, and display the images to pregnant women before performing an abortion. The measure is similar to measures approved in other states that allow women to see the ultrasound of their baby, something abortion centers don’t typically show despite doing them to determine the age of the unborn child before the abortion.
The Senate voted 26-3 for the ultrasound legislation.
Lt. Governor Kay Ivey applauded the votes, saying, “History is being made in the Alabama Legislature. I commend Senator Greg Reed for all of his hard work in making the passage of this bill a reality. The Alabama Legislature is working together to help protect and save the lives of our future generations.”
Sen. Greg Reed added: “This past November’s election had consequences, and in this case, those positive consequences allowed us to pass the first pro-life bill in years.”
The lopsided votes on the five bills were a departure from the days when Democrats controlled the state Senate and pro-life bills died in committee.
Michele Bachmann still hasn’t announced that she is willing to run for President!
I have therefore decided to protest her tarrying by posting two interviews that she did this past week, so that you can all tell me if you think that she would make a good President, or not. Maybe she will stop by and read our comments and realize how badly she is needed, and how well she would do as President.
First, Bret Baier spends some time with Michele going over her pluses and minuses: (MP3 version here – 3 Mb)
If you have Fox News, Bret Baier’s show is the best thing on that entire network.
Second, here is an interview with popular social conservative Mike Huckabee: (MP3 version here – 3 Mb)
Michele Bachmann was a self-styled “education researcher” making a run for a Minnesota school board seat in 1999 when the question came up at a candidate forum: If elected, would she serve all four years?
Maybe not, she said.
Bachmann, now a three-term congresswoman and tea party favorite who may run for president in 2012, opened up about a confrontation she’d had with a state senator over Minnesota’s new school standards.
“I told him that if he’s not willing to be more responsive to the citizens, that I may have to run for his seat or find someone else who would do so,” she said, according to a newspaper account of the meeting.
Bachmann lost the school board race, but then knocked off the senator, a fellow Republican, just months later using the standards as her primary issue.
It was an early indicator of a recurring theme: Bachmann often wins by losing.
[…]The race would test her resilience because she would start far back. But as a little-known House member only a few years ago, Bachmann became hero of the conservative tea party movement in part by fighting losing battles with the GOP establishment. Her path to Congress was paved by failed efforts to pass a ban on gay marriage in the Minnesota Legislature.
“She is very good at turning lemons into lemonade all the time,” said Sal Russo, a California political consultant who came to know Bachmann through the tea party.
[…]From her first involvement in politics, the 55-year-old Bachmann has shown a determination to keep pressing forward and find opportunities, even when the way seemed blocked.
In the late 1990s, Bachmann was a stay-at-home mother of five in Stillwater, a scenic St. Croix River town east of St. Paul. Then she was drawn into a revolt over education standards.
[…]”People had been predicting her demise since Day One: ‘Oh, she’s a radical, she’s too far right, she’s too outspoken, she’s too inflammatory,'” Pulkrabek said. “The fact of the matter is, with the exception of the first race, she wins.”
Parlaying her school board defeat into a victorious legislative campaign, she moved to the state Senate and seized on a new issue.
Around Thanksgiving 2003, justices in Massachusetts ruled the commonwealth couldn’t prevent same-sex marriage. Bachmann hit the phones, reaching out to fellow conservatives about making sure gay marriage would stay illegal in Minnesota.
[…]Jeff Davis heard her public appeal through his car radio. Not politically involved at the time, Davis came to the Capitol and pledged to help Bachmann.
[…]”She’s an energizer. She influences people around her,” Davis said. The drive instantly elevated Bachmann’s political profile, he said. “It was a launch point.”
[…]Bachmann’s victory in that race brought her to the national stage and prompted a new focus on fiscal issues. She harnessed the outrage of the tea party, a fledgling political force inflamed by debates over government bailouts and a far-reaching health law pursued by President Barack Obama.
Her outspoken opposition did not stop the health law, but it got her much more television exposure and helped make her a face of the new resistance. In one Fox News interview, Bachmann urged viewers to flood Washington and “go up and down through the halls, find members of Congress, look at the whites of their eyes and say, ‘Don’t take away my health care.'”
Amy Kremer remembers seeing Bachmann’s television plea while on a Tea Party Express bus heading between rallies in Washington state. The next week, Kremer joined Bachmann in the nation’s capital for a big tea party protest.
“You can tell the ones who have the passion, the fire in the belly and are truly speaking from the heart. She’s one of those,” Kremer said. “That comes through.”
The article goes on to explain how Michele got to be a three-term Congresswoman in one of the most liberal states in the entire country.
Congresswoman Bachmann is a leading advocate for tax reform, a staunch opponent of wasteful government spending, and a strong proponent of adherence to the Constitution, as intended by the Founding Fathers. She believes government has grown exponentially, with ObamaCare being the most recent example of its uninhibited growth. Congresswoman Bachmann wants government to make the kind of serious spending decisions that many families and small businesses have been forced to make. She is a champion of free markets and she believes in the vitality of the family as the first unit of government. She is also a defender of the unborn and staunchly stands for religious liberties.
Prior to serving in the U.S. Congress, Bachmann served in the Minnesota State Senate. She was elected to the Minnesota State Senate in 2000 where she championed the Taxpayers Bill of Rights. Before that, she spent five years as a federal tax litigation attorney, working on hundreds of civil and criminal cases. That experience solidified her strong support for efforts to simplify the Tax Code and reduce tax burdens on family and small business budgets. Congresswoman Bachmann also led the charge on education issues in Minnesota calling for the abolishment of Goals 2000 and the Profiles of Learning in its school. She recognized the need for quality schools and subsequently started a charter school for at-risk kids in Minnesota.
Congresswoman Bachmann sits on the Financial Services Committee (FSC) and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The FSC is tasked with oversight of numerous financial sectors including housing, real estate and banking. This gave the Congresswoman keen insight into the housing crisis and credit crunch, leading her to be a staunch opponent of the taxpayer-funded bailout of Wall Street and the Dodd-Frank legislation. Serving on the Intelligence Committee was a welcomed opportunity for Congresswoman Bachmann as she has consistently advocated peace through strength to ensure America’s national security. As a mother of five children and 23 foster children, she has a deep appreciation for that portion of the Oath of Office in which members of Congress vow to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
In July 2010 Congresswoman Bachmann hosted the first Tea Party Caucus meeting because she saw the need for Tea Partiers to have a listening ear in Congress. She is seen as a champion of Tea Party values including the call for lower taxes, renewed focus on the Constitution and the need to shrink the size of government.
You can learn even more in the links below, particularly this one that contains the best speech I have ever heard from her. That speech covers her Christian faith in some detail, and mentions her interest in Francis Schaeffer’s apologetics, which also formed the views of famous worldview scholar Nancey Pearcey. Did you know that Michele once introduced famous Indian apologist Ravi Zacharias when he was giving a MacLaurin lecture? She is a big fan of Christian apologetics – she asked to go see Ravi Zacharias for her birthday present. A woman after my own heart. She doesn’t want clothes and jewelry – she wants to be able to defend her faith! You can listen to the lecture right here (14 Mb), and hear her gushing about apologetics and Ravi Zacharias. The topic is “Christian Apologetics in the 21st century”. The lecture was delivered in March 2002 in Minnesota, when Michele was a state senator.
The state legislature has approved a state ballot proposal that will allow Tennessee voters to run back a pro-abortion ruling by the state Supreme Court that prevents lawmakers from putting in place any pro-life laws to limit abortion.
The amendment is necessary because the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled 4-1 in 2000 that the state constitution allows unlimited abortions. It is necessary, pro-life advocates say, to be able to pass laws to limit and reduce abortions. The ruling claimed the Tennessee Constitution contains a fundamental abortion right even broader than Roe v. Wade or the federal constitution and it resulted in the striking down of numerous pro-life Tennessee laws that were helping women and limiting abortions.
The Tennessee state House voted today 76-18 vote for the state ballot proposal sponsored by Republican Rep. Debra Maggart of Hendersonville. The text of SJR 127 returns authority for abortion regulation to the people of Tennessee and their state legislators and reads as follows: “Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion. The people retain the right through their elected state representatives and state senators to enact, amend, or repeal statutes regarding abortion, including, but not limited to, circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest or when necessary to save the life of the mother.”
Proposed amendments in Tennessee must be passed by two consecutive general assemblies, the second time by a two-thirds supermajority. with today’s vote, SJR 127 will now be placed on the ballot for approval by Tennesseans during the next gubernatorial election in 2014.
The bill was passed the first time in 2009 by a margin of 77-21. Tennessee must have a REALLY liberal Supreme Court, because the legislators are good. Then again, they passed TennCare and that was just socialized medicine.
WINTERY KNIGHT 