Obama Administration Calls Indiana's Ban of Planned Parenthood Illegal
Published June 01, 2011
Associated Press
The Health and Human Services Department rejected changes in Indiana's Medicaid plan Wednesday, saying it illegally bans funding for Planned Parenthood, and sought to make clear that a similar fate awaits other states that pass legislation barring any qualified health care provider.
In a letter sent to Indiana's Medicaid
director, Medicaid Administrator Donald M. Berwick said Indiana's plan
will improperly bar beneficiaries from receiving services. Federal law
requires Medicaid beneficiaries to be able to obtain services from any
qualified provider.
"Medicaid programs may not exclude qualified
health care providers from providing services that are funded under the
program because of a provider's scope of practice," Berwick wrote in a
letter to Patricia Cassanova, the director of Indiana's office of
Medicaid Policy and Planning. "Such a restriction would have a
particular effect on beneficiaries' ability to access family planning
providers."
Indiana's law bars Planned Parenthood
offices in the state from receiving federal money because it provides
abortions, among other services.
Indiana should change its plan to conform
with federal law, or the state could face penalties, the letter said,
noting that Indiana has 60 days to appeal. In the past, state Medicaid
plans that did not conform with federal law have been changed by states
before HHS enforced any penalties.
In addition to Berwick's letter, HHS also
posted a notice on Wednesday to other interested parties that sought to
make clear that the department would take a dim view of similar efforts
to ban specific providers from federal funds.
Indiana officials should have expected the proposed changes to the state's Medicaid plan would be rejected, Berwick wrote.
"We assume this decision is not unexpected,"
Berwick wrote. "As the Indiana Legislative Services Agency indicated in
its April 19, 2011, fiscal impact statement, `While states are
permitted to waive a recipient's freedom of choice of a provider to
implement managed care, restricting freedom of choice with respect to providers of family planning services is prohibited."'
The HHS notice, written by Cindy Mann, the
director of the Center for Medicaid, CHIP and Survey &
Certification, emphasizes that states may bar providers from
participating in Medicaid in certain circumstances, such as if a
provider is committing fraud or criminal acts.
"States are not, however, permitted to
exclude providers from the program solely on the basis of the range of
medical services they provide," Mann wrote.
Medicaid is a federal-state partnership
that nationwide now covers more than 60 million low-income children and
parents, seniors, including most nursing home residents, and disabled
people of any age.
Federal law prohibits using any federal
funds, including Medicaid funding, to provide abortions. While Planned
Parenthood provides abortion services, it also provides other services
such as preventative care, cancer screenings, and family planning and is
eligible to receive Medicaid funding for its other services.
Planned Parenthood operates 28 clinics in
Indiana, four of which perform abortions. The state chapter has said
federal funding makes up about 20 percent of its annual budget.
In recent days, HHS has come under lobbying
from both Democrats and Republicans on the issue. Last week, a group of
Democratic senators called on HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to inform Indiana that its ban didn't comply with federal law.
In response, eight Republican members of
Indiana's congressional delegation sent Sebelius a letter calling on her
to support the state's law.
For Immediate Release
Contact: Benjamin Clapper, 504-228-4273
June 14, 2010
Baton Rouge- On Monday, HB 1247, authored by Representative Frank
Hoffman (R-West Monroe) and carried on the Senate floor by Senator
Gerald Long (R-Winnfield), passed the Senate floor by a margin of 28-3.
While HB 1247 has already passed the House, it must now receive formal
concurrence in the House due to changes made in the Senate Health and
Welfare Committee. Once the House stamps the changes in the next few
days, the bill will be sent to Governor Jindal for his expected
signature.
Benjamin Clapper, Executive Director of Louisiana Right to Life
Federation, commented, "Today, HB 1247 cleared its final major hurdle,
and Louisiana legislature, in accord with our people, have resoundingly
sent a message to our nation that abortion is not health care."
Clapper continued, "Once HB 1247 has been stamped by the House and
signed by the Governor, we will be at least the 4th state* to opt out of
abortion subsidies since the President signed his national health care
reform bill into law three short months ago on March 23rd. We have
helped initiate a growing state-by-state movement declaring that health
care reform should not be used to expand abortion."
"We thank Representative Hoffman, Senator Long, and the Jindal
Administration for their dedication to this legislation, and we have
been honored to stand firmly behind this legislation since its inception
the day after health care reform was signed into law," Clapper
concluded.
Women Left Clinic Crying; Sexual Abuse Victims Say Sonogram and Lecture Doubly Traumatize Women
By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES
April 29, 2010
From the time she was 15 and repeatedly over the course of two years, Joelle Casteix -- a vulnerable teen with an alcoholic mother-- was sexually abused by her Californiahigh school music teacher.
Critics say the law could keep doctors from giving vital information to women.
At 17, when Casteix discovered she was pregnant with her assailant's child, she sought an abortion, one that she says was emotionally painful, but she doesn't regret.
"For the first time in my life, I did something to take care of myself," she said. "I needed to ensure my safety and make sure he wouldn't hurt me. For me it was an act of survival."
At the abortion clinic, Casteix was given comfort and counseling then underwent a standard sonogram to determine the gestational age of the fetus. Sheturned her eyes away from the screen.
But under a new law in Oklahoma, women like Casteix, who have been sexually assaulted, will be forced to undergo a second trauma. The law requires them to undergo a sonogram, and depending on the state of pregnancy, it could be a transvaginal one, which involves insertion of a wand.
The doctor must then turn the screen towards her and describe fetal dimensions and details like the number of fingers and toes and heart activity.
"The law takes no account of the trauma of the victim," said Casteix. "I just can't imagine what that would have done to me. It upsets me just thinking about being in that position. If you are the victim of a violent crime, it's absolutely devastating."
"Not one patient would look at the screen and they all closed their eyes or turned their heads," said Linda Meek, director at Reproductive Services in Tulsa, which does 3,000 abortions a year.
"But it's hard to turn your ears off," she said. "Several of the patients were in tears afterwards. No one changed their mind."
The New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights has filed a legal challenge to the controversial law, arguing it violates both the patient's and doctor's freedom of speech and intrudes upon a patient's privacy in her relationship with her doctor.
New laws in Neb. add restrictions on abortions
Apr 14, 4:16 AM (ET)
By NATE JENKINS
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Two first-of-their-kind laws in Nebraska put new restrictions on abortion, including one that uses a new legal rationale for a ban on later-term abortions.
That law bars the procedure at and after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the assertion that fetuses can feel pain at that point. The other requires women be screened before having abortions for mental health issues and other risk factors indicating if they might have problems afterward.
A national abortion rights group already appeared to be girding for a legal challenge, calling the ban at or after 20 weeks "flatly unconstitutional."
"It absolutely cannot survive a challenge without a change to three decades of court rulings," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. "Courts have been chipping away at abortion rights ... this would be like taking a huge hacksaw to the rights."
The law is designed to shut down one of the few doctors in the nation who performs them in Nebraska. Set to take effect in October, it is a change from the current standard in abortion restrictions based on viability, or when a fetus is able to survive outside the womb. That is generally at 22 to 24 weeks.
The law could lead to changes in other states if upheld by the courts, said Mary Spaulding Balch, legislative director for National Right to Life.
"It would broaden the interests of states in protecting the unborn child," she said. "It says the state has an interest in the unborn child before viability."
Both sides of the abortion debate say the laws are firsts of their kind in the U.S.
The fetal-pain bill is partially aimed at Dr. LeRoy Carhart, who attracted attention after his friend and fellow late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was shot to death by an abortion foe in Kansas last year.
Kansas lawmakers, worried that Carhart might move there, has passed a bill awaiting action from Gov. Mark Parkinson, an abortion-rights Democrat. It would require doctors to list an exact medical diagnosis justifying a late-term abortion and adjust the definition of viability so a fetus would be considered viable if there's a "reasonable probability" it would survive outside the womb with life-sustaining measures such as an incubator.
Also, it would codify a state rule that the required second opinion on whether late-term abortions are necessary come from doctors in Kansas.
Attempts to restrict abortion across the country aren't unusual. In Oklahoma, for example, new laws on abortions have been approved this year, including a ban on abortions based on the gender of the child and tighter restrictions on the use of the RU-486 abortion pill. South Dakota voters in 2006 and 2008 turned down proposals to ban abortion outright.
The switch from viability to fetal pain in justifying abortion limits raises fresh legal issues.
Abortion opponents say a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding a federal ban on certain late-term abortions opens the door for such legislation because it suggests states have an interest in protecting fetuses.
The argument used to justify the 20-week ban is based on the testimony of some doctors, some of it given during a 2005 congressional hearing. They contend there is substantial evidence that by 20 weeks, fetuses seek to evade stimuli in a way that indicates they are experiencing pain.
"The Nebraska Legislature has taken a bold step which should ratchet up the abortion debate across the nation," Nebraska Right to Life director Julie Schmit-Albin said. "What we didn't know in 1973 in Roe versus Wade ... we know now."
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, however, says it knows of no legitimate evidence that fetuses experience pain at that stage.
"There is certainly no solid scientific evidence establishing that a fetus can perceive pain at these earlier stages, so any court decisions to uphold such broader laws could only do so by disregarding the importance of good scientific evidence," said Caitlin Borgmann, a law professor at The City University of New York.
The U.S. Supreme Court would have to overturn earlier abortion-related rulings to uphold the Nebraska law, Borgmann said, including a 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that upheld the right of women to have abortions before fetuses were viable.
A Strategy for the Next Supreme Court Abortion Battle?
Pending Nebraska Legislation Focuses on Fetus Pain and Viability
By ARIANE de VOGUE
April 6, 2010
Activists on both sides of the abortion debate are carefully eyeing a Nebraska bill that's wending its way through the legislature this week. They wonder if a proposed ban might end up as the subject of the next Supreme Court abortion battle.
The road to every major Supreme Court decision on a divisive social issue is littered with hundreds of hours of strategy sessions by lawyers, politicians and activists probing pending legislation to see if it has the potential to become a court challenge.
The Nebraska bill -- which seeks to make abortions illegal after the 20th week of pregnancy -- is no different. The bright-line rule is necessary because of some medical evidence that a fetus can feel pain at that stage of gestation, sponsors of the legislation say.
The legislation has drawn national attention from groups such as the Center for Reproductive Rights, which sees it as a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that legalized abortion. If the legislation passes, Nebraska will be the first state to ban abortions based on the controversial notion that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks. State law now has a post-viability ban on abortion but defines viability on a case-by-case basis.
"This bill is about recognizing that the state has an interest in an unborn child who is capable of feeling pain," Mary Spaulding Balch of the National Right to Life Committee said.
While some medical experts testified at the Nebraska hearings that a fetus is able to feel pain at 20 weeks, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a statement saying it knows of "no legitimate scientific information that supports the statement that a fetus experiences pain."
Since the Roe decision, states have attempted to pass a variety of laws meant to limit abortion focusing on medical procedures and parental and spousal notification. The Nebraska bill is more worrisome because of its direct attack on Roe, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.
The bill contains a health exception for the mother if "in reasonable medical judgment, she has a condition which so complicates her medical condition as to necessitate the abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or to avert serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function."
"This particular Nebraska bill is not subtle at all," Nancy Northup, the group's president, said. "It would require turning over two pillars of Roe in that states cannot establish a line of viability and the bill too narrowly defines an exception for women's health."
Abortion Rights Advocates Alarmed
State Sen. Danielle Conrad, a Democrat, has been fighting the bill. "The issue of fetal pain is a misnomer" she said. "The medical evidence is inconclusive. The real problem with this legislation is it eviscerates what the courts have told us from Roe v. Wade forward: that the standard cannot be a bright line. Instead, it must be an individual assessment of viability."
Anti-abortion supporters have been emboldened in their challenges to aspects of Roe since the Supreme Court upheld in 2007 a ban on an abortion procedure known by its critics as "partial-birth abortion," or a form of late-term abortion.
The case -- Gonzales v. Carhart -- alarmed the abortion rights community because the court had struck down a similar ban seven years before.
The difference was the composition of the court. Chief Justice William Rehnquist was replaced by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was replaced by Justice Samuel Alito. Alito's vote gave the majority the five votes needed to uphold the ban.
Kathryn Kolbert of Barnard University, who is a veteran of the abortion wars, argued and won in 1992 the case Pennsylvania v. Casey, which upheld the core holding of Roe. She, too, is watching the progress of the Nebraska bill.
"I spent my career following these types of bills, thinking about legislative strategy that would impact & making all kinds of strategic decisions," she said. "I was probably in 44 states in the years leading up to Casey."
Kolbert looks at the Supreme Court today and is worried about the strong conservative block. She is particularly worried that Justice Anthony Kennedy, who voted to uphold Roe, might be slipping to the conservative side of the issue.
"Kennedy was with us on Casey, but O'Connor's presence on the court was central to Kennedy, Kolbert said. "He has shifted since O'Connor left the bench." She pointed to language Kennedy wrote in the Gonzales decision that she believes suggests that women are somehow incapable of understanding the magnitude of the decision: "Whether to have an abortion requires a difficult and painful moral decision," Kennedy wrote, "which some women come to regret."
Some Conservatives Are Optimistic
Kolbert said, "I don't think O'Connor would have let him get away with that. It feeds into a stereotype that women are too emotional, they don't know what they are doing."
But some conservatives believe that science is evolving, suggesting that the court may revisit precedent.
"Since 1973, there has been a lot of development in what we know about the developing, unknown child," Balch of the National Right to Life Committee said. "This new information should make it to the Supreme Court."
Mother furious after in-school clinic sets up teen's abortion
The mother of a Ballard High School student is fuming after the health center on campus helped facilitate her daughter's abortion during school hours.
Story Published: Mar 23, 2010 at 5:33 PM PDT
Story Updated: Mar 24, 2010 at 8:15 AM PDT
SEATTLE -- The mother of a Ballard High School student is fuming after the health center on campus helped facilitate her daughter's abortion during school hours.
The mother, whom KOMO News has chosen to identify only as "Jill," says the clinic kept the information "confidential."
When she signed a consent form, Jill figured it meant her 15 year old could go to the Ballard Teen Health Center located inside the high school for an earache, a sports physical, even birth control, but not for help terminating a pregnancy.
"She took a pregnancy test at school at the teen health center," she said. "Nowhere in this paperwork does it mention abortion or facilitating abortion."
Jill says her daughter, a pro-life advocate, was given a pass, put in a taxi and sent off to have an abortion during school hours all without her family knowing.
"We had no idea this was being facilitated on campus," said Jill. "They just told her that if she concealed it from her family, that it would be free of charge and no financial responsibility."
The Seattle School District says it doesn't run the health clinics at high schools. Swedish Medical Center runs the clinic at Ballard High and protects the students' privacy.
T.J. Cosgrove of the King County Health Department, which administers the school-based programs for the health department, says it's always best if parents are involved in their children's health care, but don't always have a say.
"At any age in the state of Washington, an individual can consent to a termination of pregnancy," he said.
But Jill says she not only didn't have a say in her daughter's abortion, but also didn't know about it.
"Makes me feel like my rights were completely stripped away."
Schlafly: Health Care Vote Set to Expose the Myth of the 'Pro-Life Democrat'
Sun Mar 21, 5:58 pm ET
WASHINGTON, March 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Phyllis Schlafly, president and founder of the conservative grassroots public policy organizationEagle Forum, made the following remarks after the public announcement that formerly pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak (D-MI) will cast a "yes" vote for the Senate health care bill today in the House:
"It is naive for any elected official, especially one who describes himself as 'pro-life,' to expect that a promise to issue an Executive Order that reasserts the intentions of the Hyde Amendment will be fulfilled by the most pro-abortion president to ever sit in the White House. Perhaps Mr. Stupak and his fellow pro-life Democrats forget that President Obama's first Executive Order was the repeal of the Mexico City Policy to allow for international funding of abortion."
"Not only would an Executive Order be rendered meaningless in the face of Congress passing legislation which actively provides for the massive expansion and funding of abortion services, but anyone who doubts the abortion tsunami which awaits this bill becoming law lives in a fantasy world."
"Barack Obama has lined every existing federal agency with the most dedicated pro-abortion ideologues, and we know that he will continue this pattern of pro-abortion appointments when it comes time for him to fill the over-100 bureaucracies created to administer his socialized health care program."
"Any formerly pro-life Democrat who casts a 'Yes' vote for this Senate health care bill tonight will be forever remembered as being among the deciding votes which facilitated the largest expansion of abortion services since Roe v. Wade."
"Mr. Stupak and his Democrat followers have now clarified that you cannot be pro-life and be a Democrat. If abortion was truly their biggest issue, they wouldn't willfully align themselves with the Party of Death."
"This vote will expose the myth of the 'pro-life Democrat.' With this single vote, the Democratic Party will divide our nation into the Party of Death and the Party of Life, and future elections will never be the same."
CONTACT: Suzanne Bibby, (610) 608-6303
SOURCE Phyllis Schlafly
Planned Parenthood Director Quits After Watching Abortion on Ultrasound
Monday , November 02, 2009
Joseph Abrams
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The former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in southeast Texas says she had a "change of heart" after watching an abortion last month — and she quit her job and joined a pro-life group in praying outside the facility.
Abby Johnson, 29, used to escort women from their cars to the clinic in the eight years she volunteered and worked for Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas. But she says she knew it was time to leave after she watched a fetus "crumple" as it was vacuumed out of a patient's uterus in September.
'When I was working at Planned Parenthood I was extremely pro-choice," Johnson told FoxNews.com. But after seeing the internal workings of the procedure for the first time on an ultrasound monitor, "I would say there was a definite conversion in my heart ... a spiritual conversion."
Johnson said she became disillusioned with her job after her bosses pressured her for months to increase profits by performing more and more abortions, which cost patients between $505 and $695.
"Every meeting that we had was, 'We don't have enough money, we don't have enough money — we've got to keep these abortions coming,'" Johnson told FoxNews.com. "It's a very lucrative business and that's why they want to increase numbers."
A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood told FoxNews.com that it offers a range of services at it 850 health centers nationwide, providing pregnancy tests, vaccinations and women's health services, "including wellness exams, breast and cervical cancer screenings, contraception, and STD testing and treatment."
"Planned Parenthood's focus is on prevention," wrote Diane Quest, the group's National Media Director. "Nationwide, more than 90% of the health care Planned Parenthood affiliates provide is preventive in nature," explaining that a "core component the organization's mission is to help women plan healthy pregnancies and prevent unintended pregnancies."
But Johnson said her bosses told her to change her "priorities" and focus on abortions, which she said made money for the office at a time when the recession has left them hurting.
"For them there's not a lot of money in education," she said. "There's as not as much money in family planning as there is abortion."
Without a doctor in residence, she said, her clinic offered abortions only two days a month, but the doctor could perform 30 to 40 procedures on each day he was there. Johnson estimated that each abortion could net the branch about $350, adding up to more than $10,000 a month.
"The majority of the money was going to the facility," she said.
Johnson said she never got any orders to increase profits in e-mails or letters, and had no way to prove her allegations about practices at the Bryan branch. She told FoxNews.com that pressure came in personal interactions with her regional manager from the larger Houston office.
But she said she got involved with the clinic "to help women and ... [do] the right thing," and the idea of raking in cash seemed to go against what she felt was the mission of the 93-year-old organization.
"Ideally my goal as the facility's director is that your abortion numbers don't increase," because "you're providing so much family planning and so much education that there is not a demand for abortion services.
"But that was not their goal," she said.
A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood refused to answer questions about Johnson's accusations, but released a statement noting that a district court had issued a temporary restraining order against the former branch director and against the Coalition for Life, an anti-abortion group with which Johnson is now affiliated.
"We regret being forced to turn to the courts to protect the safety and confidentiality of our clients and staff, however, in this instance it is absolutely necessary," said spokeswoman Rochelle Tafolla.
It is unclear what made Planned Parenthood seek the restraining order. Johnson said she did not intend to release any sensitive information about her former patients at the clinic.
A hearing is set for Nov. 10 to determine whether a judge will order an injunction against Johnson and the Coalition for Life, which has led protests outside the clinic and joined her in a prayer vigil there last month.
Johnson hasn't found a job since she quit on Oct. 6, but she said she's enjoying the time off to be with her 3-year-old daughter.
"It's been great just to spend some time at home and get a break," she said.
Wednesday, Oct 14 2009
American 'abortion addict' reveals she terminated 15 pregnancies in 17 years
A woman has admitted to being 'an abortion addict' after having 15 terminations over 17 years.
Irene Vilar said she had the abortions not from poverty or fear but as an extraordinary act of rebellion against her 'controlling' husband who did not want children.
The 40-year-old's confession has unleashed a torrent of attacks from anti-abortion activists on the internet, including death threats and demands for her to be jailed.
The cycle of pregnancies and abortions, which began when she was 16 and ended when she was 33, was also punctuated by several suicide attempts.
Now a successful literary agent with two young daughters, Loretta, five, and Lolita, three, Mrs Vilar has written about her experiences in a memoir, called Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict.
The book, which was published yesterday, has shocked many Americans, who remain bitterly divided over the issue, and has angered campaigners on both sides of the abortion divide.
Charmaine Yoest, president of pro-life pressure group Americans United for Life, said: 'It really underscores everything we always say in the pro-life movement - that abortion is part of a very sad story for women.'
However, pro-choice campaigners said Mrs Vilar's book raises uncomfortable questions about abortion as a form of birth control.
Mrs Vilar said of the book's reception: 'I am worried about my safety and the hate mail. I just imagine the "baby killer" stuff and I could be a poster child for that kind of fundamentalism.'
The attractive one-time academic prodigy attended a boarding school in New Hampshire and was accepted into a New York university when she was only 15.
A year later, she fell in love and married a 50-year-old Latin American literature professor, who she says was opposed to having children.
She claims he bragged that his relationships never lasted more than five years and told that having children killed sexual desire.
In response, Mrs Vilar said she rebelled by 'forgetting' to take her birth control pills.
Puerto Rican nationalist Lolita Lebron, pictured at an anti-U.S. protest in 2000, is Ms Vilar's grandmother. She left her own daughter with relatives as a baby
'In the beginning I was taking pills and I'd skip a day or two or give up one month,' she said in a television interview. 'I'd think I'll be better next time.
'But slowly, my days took on a balancing act and there was a specific high. I would get my period and be sad, then discover I was pregnant, being afraid, yet also so excited.'
She claimed she had the abortions so her husband wouldn't leave her although she failed to reveal whether he knew of the terminations.
'Of course, this did not mean I wanted to do it again and again.
'A druggie also wants to stop every time.'
'Of course, this did not mean I wanted to do it again and again,' she said. 'A druggie also wants to stop every time.
'Women have written memoirs about their anorexia or their bulimia, and they explain the best that they can what motivated their addiction or their behaviour. I try to do the same in this book.'
Her first husband, Pedro Cuperman, a professor at Syracuse University in New York, could not be contacted for comment yesterday.
In her book, Mrs Vilar also revealed how she is haunted by a tragic past. Her grandmother, Puerto Rican nationalist Lolita Lebron, was jailed for 25 years after storming the U.S. Capitol building with a gun in 1954.
She was convicted of attempting to overthrow the government and was jailed for 25 years before she was pardoned by President Jimmy Carter in 1979.
Divided: Ms Vilar's book has split opinion on the issue of abortion
The author was eight when her mother killed herself by jumping from a moving car and died two days later. Her husband had been driving while her tiny daughter had made a pathetic attempt to hold her mother back.
Two of Mrs Vilar's brothers became heroin addicts.
Although she said she did not see herself as a victim, she admitted she felt she had let the women's movement down.
Now re-married, she is raising their two daughters and two teenage stepchildren in Denver, Colorado.
'Motherhood has made me feel accountable,' she said. 'It hasn't made me less pro-choice.
'It's just that I understand and feel the weight of the privilege we have in exercising our right to choose.'
Yesterday, a report released by the U.S.-based Guttmacher Institute revealed the number of abortions fell from 45.5million in 1995 to 41.6million in 2003.
The study claimed progress had been made in reducing unintended pregnancies, but too many women were still having unsafe abortions, with 32 countries having laws that make the procedure illegal.
The manuscript for Impossible Motherhood was rejected 51 times, before finally being published by Other Press.
Miss Vilar married her second husband in 2003 and now lives with her two daughters and two stepchildren. She is planning a new memoir on motherhood.
Pro-life Dem not confident health bill will bar abortion funding
By Michael O'Brien - 10/02/09 12:41 PM ET
A leading pro-life Democrat said Friday he is "not very confident" that Congress will clearly stipulate a ban on federal funding for abortions in healthcare legislation.
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), the Democratic leader of the bipartisan pro-life caucus in Congress, said that the health reform bills in Congress should include a version of the so-called "Hyde amendment," the 1976 ban on federal funding for abortion.
"Unfortunately, I don't see a clear resolution right now," Stupak told U.S. News. "I'm prepared to go to the Rules Committee and offer the Hyde Amendment. I'm not too sure I'll get very far because no right-to-life amendments have been made to order all year."
Stupak said he was concerned that any amendment he would offer on barring abortion funding in health legislation would be watered down by leaders in his party, and called on President Barack Obama to more forcefully intervene to ensure that health legislation won't include funding, as the president has promised.
"I'm not very confident," Stupak explained. "I still think somewhere along this process, and hopefully before the first vote on the House floor, the president should weigh in."
An amendment had been offered by Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) to prohibit funding for abortions in almost all circumstances, but pro-life groups have argued the amendment does not go far enough in stipulating no federal funding for pregnancy termination.
The Michigan lawmaker said a conversation with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had also done little to change his mind on the abortion provision, and that she encouraged him to work out a compromise with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).
Popular support for abortion rights has dropped seven points in the past year due in part to the election of a pro-choice Democratic president, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life said Thursday.
In the largest shift in sentiment since pollsters began asking about the topic in 1995, support dropped from 54 to 47 percent in one year. Opposition rose from 40 to 44 percent and the percentage of undecided rose from 6 to 9 percent.
"It's pretty unusual," senior Pew researcher Greg Smith said of the change in public attitudes about abortion rights. "In 2007 and 2008, supporters of abortion clearly outnumbered opponents by a 14-point margin. Now the margin is 3 percent. Basically, they are evenly divided."
Pew's findings square with a similar Gallup Values and Beliefs survey in May that showed more Americans consider themselves to be pro-life (51 percent) than pro-choice (42 percent).
They also square with a Pew survey released in May showing an even larger drop of 8 percentage points - 54 to 46 percent since August 2008 - of abortion rights advocates. The biggest drops in support were among white mainline Protestants and men. Approval among both groups fell by 10 percent.
Although opponents have yet to actually outnumber supporters of abortion rights, the balance of opinion has shifted dramatically across the culture and multiple religious groups ranging from Catholics to Jews, Mr. Smith said.
And the idea of a "common ground" on abortion, a key tenet of the Obama administration, is apparently not resonating with either major political parties or the religiously affiliated and non-affiliated. The most disenchanted with the idea are white evangelical Protestants, whose support for a middle ground dropped 21 percentage points (from 61 percent to 40 percent) since 2006. The one exception is Roman Catholics, whose support for common ground rose 4 points, from 63 to 67 percent.
Pew figures showed that a large number of liberals no longer consider abortion a key issue, whereas conservatives are increasingly more entrenched in their opposition to the nation's annual total of 1.2 million abortions. Fifteen percent of all liberals consider abortion an important issue today, compared with 28 percent in 2005, the survey said.
The survey of 4,013 adults, conducted in August, is one of the first indicators of public sentiment on the Obama administration's first nine months. It has a margin of error of 2 percent.
Pew researchers pinpointed the this past spring as the turning point of public perceptions of the issue.
"There is no one answer that explains the shift," Mr. Smith said. "The election of a Democratic pro-choice president could be a contributing factor."
Although survey results showed a drop in approval of legalized abortion, it also showcased a large swatch of the public that wishes the matter would be laid to rest.
In a question about President Obama's handling of the issue, 42 percent said they didn't know his stance on abortion, "which is consistent with the decline of the importance of this issue for a lot of people," Mr. Smith said.
Of the remainder, 29 percent said the president is handling the issue "about right," 19 percent worry he is supporting abortion too much, and 4 percent say he is not doing enough.
Pew found that support for abortion rights has dropped among Catholics of all stripes, with the biggest decline - 10 points - among white Catholics who attend Mass weekly.
All religious groups on the survey showed sizable drops in abortion rights support. Double-digit drops included Jews (10 percent), white mainline Protestants (10 percent) and white evangelicals who sporadically attend church (12 percent).
Bachmann warns of abortions at school
By Eric Zimmermann - 10/01/09 10:01 AM ET
Schools might start offering abortions if healthcare reform passes, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) warned last night.
Speaking on the House floor, Bachmann raised concerns about the "school based health clinics" discussed in H.R. 3200, which she labeled "sex clinics."
Bachmann said the passage was designed to bring Planned Parenthood into the nation's schools. (VIDEO BELOW)
She continued:
But parents are going to excluded from Planned Parenthood as they write these clinics because the bill orders that these clinics protect patient privacy and student records. What does that mean? It means that parents will never know what kind of counsel and treatment that their children are receiving. And as a matter of fact, the bill goes on to say what's going to go on -- comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care -- is that abortion? Does that mean that someone's 13 year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser.
It's not clear this is the case, however. Section 2511 specifically states that such clinics must follow state laws governing parental consent. (Read the section here.)
(i) SBHC services will be provided in accordance with Federal, State, and local laws governing--
(I) obtaining parental or guardian consent; and
(II) patient privacy and student records, including section 264 of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and section 444 of the General Education Provisions Act;
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