More Abortion Mills Close In San Francisco Area

Life Legal Defense Foundation joins San Francisco Bay Area pro-lifers in celebrating the closure of Golden Gate Community Health (GGCH). GGCH was the successor corporation to Planned Parenthood Golden Gate (PPGG), the organization that last summer was stripped of its affiliate status by Planned Parenthood Federation of America amidst allegations of financial and administrative mismanagement.

Before its closure, GGHC operated five abortion clinics in four Bay Area counties, already a considerable decline from its heyday in the '90's, when it operated four abortion clinics in San Mateo County alone. Its website boasted that, as PPGG, it had been in continuous operation for over 90 years.

PPGG was not only one of the oldest Planned Parenthood affiliates; it was also one of the most litigious. PPGG instigated frequent litigation against pro-life activists from the '80's to as recently as a year ago. The affiliate was a party in at least six lawsuits against pro-life activists, as well as the impetus for a seventh suit in federal court. In each case, LLDF represented the pro-life activists whose free speech rights were threatened, including (but not limited to) Ross Foti, Lowell King, Fr. Edward Cleary, Robert Cochran, and Jeannette and Louis Garibaldi. This litigation resulted in five published court opinions.

PPGG was also one of the plaintiffs in challenging the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.

PPGG lost $2.8 million during the tax year 2008-2009 and had not broken even since 2006. GGHC was reported to have run up a shortfall totaling $536,000 in 2010 and had attempted, apparently unsuccessfully, to raise $1.5 million in order to keep its clinics open.

At the same time it was struggling to survive financially, PPGG contributed over $750,000 to defeat three California ballot initiatives, in 2005, 2006, and 2008, that would have required parental notification before a minor could have an abortion.

"As Congress debates continued funding of Planned Parenthood, it should take note of the organization's spending priorities," said LLDF President Dana Cody. "Furthering Planned Parenthood's political agenda apparently was more important than providing all those 'critical health services' that we keep hearing about."

CNW

Political Tone Should Demand Honesty On Abortion, Health Care

As pundits encourage us to engage in a national examination of conscience on the tone of our civil discourse, hundreds of thousands of students, young adults and pro-life veterans demonstrated civility in action over the past few days. At Marches for Life at the Capitol, on the West Coast, and at statehouses across the nation, the violence of abortion was met with a message of care and concern for both the woman and her unborn child.

The tone that we take in the public square is a legitimate topic of discussion. Yet in the debate on abortion and healthcare, some pundits and politicians have long overlooked the prerequisite condition of authentic civil discourse; namely, honesty about the terms of the debate.

President Obama recently noted that “only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation.”

Civil and honest – the two are indeed related. Civility in our public discourse is undermined if citizens have reason to believe that they are being misled. The most recent “Newspeak” rose out of the various health care mega-bills in the last Congress. While most citizens at town hall meetings were respectful in their tone, the scream-at-your-Congressperson approach taken by a few aptly expressed the hair-pulling frustration experienced by the vast majority of citizens across the political spectrum.

The indignation witnessed at town hall meetings was not only attributable to the sweeping scope of the bills that ballooned the deficit and blew past constitutional boundaries of federal power. Rather, the tone became intensified because the American people could not seem to get a straight answer on the life and death issues impacted by the massive legislation.

“Is public money going to subsidize coverage for elective abortion?” “Will there be politically appointed panels who will make life and death coverage decisions for seniors?” “Will I get to keep my current health plan?” (Yes, yes, probably not).

Without rehashing these issues, it is enough to say that the conflict between the bill language and the Administration’s rhetoric resulted in a level of intense emotional outbursts usually reserved for Italian-American dinner tables.

Now we begin again. The newly elected Congress is once again faced with a debate about tax-subsidized abortion coverage in the federal health care law. And State legislatures continue to debate “opt-out” bills that prohibit abortion coverage in any future state health insurance exchanges.

Those who peacefully march renew their call for elected officials to debate these critical issues with honesty. If we were truly honest, everyone would know about the empirical medical studies showing that abortion is not health care. It’s the opposite of care for the physical and psychological health of the woman, and it destroys the life of a unique and unrepeatable unborn child.

Those who nonetheless support tax-subsidized abortion coverage are required by that honesty so essential to civility to clearly state their goal and to make their case. No more outright denials of what is buried in the bill. No more hiding behind accounting schemes drafted behind closed doors in the middle of the night.

If a pro-life bill to prohibit abortion funding and protect health care provider rights of conscience makes its way to the President’s desk, honesty requires that he either sign it or veto it. No more empty and unenforceable executive orders.
It’s well past time for the honest terms of the abortion debate to be put on the table. Not only about who pays for it, but more importantly about the humanity of the unborn child and the coercive impact that it places on pregnant women.

The bottom line is that civil discourse does not preclude our duty to vigorously expose dishonesty in public policy. And it certainly does not require that we quietly look the other way as the culture of death marches on.

Note: Dorinda Bordlee and Nikolas Nikas are attorneys and co-founders of Bioethics Defense Fund. Contact us atinfo@BDFund.org to request model legislation addressing abortion coercion, ultrasound mandates, Obamacare abortion opt-out legislation, health care rights of conscience and the full range of bioethics issues.

Obama And His Unbalanced Ledger

WASHINGTON - The ledger did not appear to be adding up Tuesday night when President Barack Obama urged more spending on one hand and a spending freeze on the other. Obama spoke ambitiously of putting money into roads, research, education, efficient cars, high-speed rail and other initiatives in his State of the Union speech.

He pointed to the transportation and construction projects of the last two years and proposed "we redouble these efforts." He coupled this with a call to "freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years."

But Obama offered far more examples of where he would spend than where he would cut, and some of the areas he identified for savings are not certain to yield much if anything.

For example, he said he wants to eliminate "billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies." Yet he made a similar proposal last year that went nowhere. He sought $36.5 billion in tax increases on oil and gas companies over the next decade, but Congress largely ignored the request, even though Democrats were then in charge of both houses of Congress.

A look at some of Obama's statements Tuesday night and how they compare with the facts:

OBAMA: Tackling the deficit "means further reducing health care costs, including programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which are the single biggest contributor to our long-term deficit. Health insurance reform will slow these rising costs, which is part of why nonpartisan economists have said that repealing the health care law would add a quarter of a trillion dollars to our deficit."

THE FACTS: The idea that Obama's health care law saves money for the government is based on assumptions that are arguable, at best.

To be sure, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated the law will slightly reduce red ink over 10 years. But the office's analysis assumes that steep cuts in Medicare spending, as called for in the law, will actually take place. Others in the government have concluded it is unrealistic to expect such savings from Medicare.

In recent years, for example, Congress has repeatedly overridden a law that would save the treasury billions by cutting deeply into Medicare pay for doctors. Just last month, the government once again put off the scheduled cuts for another year, at a cost of $19 billion. That money is being taken out of the health care overhaul. Congress has shown itself sensitive to pressure from seniors and their doctors, and there's little reason to think that will change.

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OBAMA: Vowed to veto any bills sent to him that include "earmarks," pet spending provisions pushed by individual lawmakers. "Both parties in Congress should know this: If a bill comes to my desk with earmarks inside, I will veto it."

THE FACTS: House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has promised that no bill with earmarks will be sent to Obama in the first place. Republicans have taken the lead in battling earmarks while Obama signed plenty of earmark-laden spending bills when Democrats controlled both houses.

It's a turnabout for the president; in early 2009, Obama sounded like an apologist for the practice: "Done right, earmarks have given legislators the opportunity to direct federal money to worthy projects that benefit people in their districts, and that's why I've opposed their outright elimination," he said then.

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OBAMA: "I'm willing to look at other ideas to bring down costs, including one that Republicans suggested last year: medical malpractice reform to rein in frivolous lawsuits."

THE FACTS: Republicans may be forgiven if this offer makes them feel like Charlie Brown running up to kick the football, only to have it pulled away, again.

Obama has expressed openness before to this prominent Republican proposal, but it has not come to much. It was one of several GOP ideas that were dropped or diminished in the health care law after Obama endorsed them in a televised bipartisan meeting at the height of the debate.

Republicans want federal action to limit jury awards in medical malpractice cases; what Obama appears to be offering, by supporting state efforts, falls short of that. The president has said he agrees that fear of being sued leads to unnecessary tests and procedures that drive up health care costs. So far the administration has only wanted to study the issue.

Trial lawyers, major political donors to Democratic candidates, are strongly opposed to caps on jury awards. But the administration has been reluctant to support other approaches, such as the creation of specialized courts where expert judges, not juries, would decide malpractice cases.

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OBAMA: As testament to the fruits of his administration's diplomatic efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons, he said the Iranian government "faces tougher and tighter sanctions than ever before."

THE FACTS: That is true, and it reflects Obama's promise one year ago that Iran would face "growing consequences" if it failed to heed international demands to constrain its nuclear program. But what Obama didn't say was that U.S. diplomacy has failed to persuade Tehran to negotiate over U.N. demands that it take steps to prove it is not on the path toward a bomb. Preliminary talks with Iran earlier this month broke off after the Iranians demanded U.S. sanctions be lifted.

AP