Immediately after the election, I took the opportunity to share with our readers the facts regarding what would be in store for families, especially the youngest members. The one thing I failed to address is a horrific piece of legislation that has now been officially introduced in the United States Senate. At the time of the election, the Prevention First Act (S. 21) was an established goal in the mind of Senator Harry Reid and his fellow congressional pro-aborts. Since that time, much has occurred, and none of it is good for preborn children or for the American family.
It is always a good idea to examine the facts prior to making a value judgment. And in the case of the PFA, the actual details about what this piece of legislation would do are staggering. Rather than reinvent what we have already reported at American Life League's Stop Planned Parenthood web site, allow me to share the analysis:
The Prevention First Act has several components, all of which would fund programs that are promoted by Planned Parenthood and would put millions more of our tax dollars into PP's coffers.
These components include
• Making Title X (family planning) a permanent program and funding it at $700 million or more. Since its inception in 1970, Title X of the Health and Human Services Act has always been a major funding source for PP. However, Title X is not a permanent program and must be reauthorized every year. Title X was funded at $300 million for fiscal year 2008. PP receives about 25 percent of the total or $75 million. Thus, the PFA would more than double the tax dollars given to PP ($175 million) by this one program. It would also make Title X a permanent program.
• Mandating that health insurance programs that cover prescriptions must cover abortifacient contraceptives. There are several reasons why some insurance companies do not include birth control coverage in their policies. Chief among them is that many of their customers belong to religions that are opposed to birth control and do not want to be forced to pay for this coverage. The PFA would take away the ability of consumers and insurance companies to seek the coverage they want and would force every insurance plan that covers prescription drugs to pay for birth control. This is an outrageous intrusion into the religious beliefs of millions of Americans.
• Creating a government program to push abortifacient "emergency contraception." Selling emergency contraception is one of PP's most lucrative activities. PP routinely purchases Plan B for $4.25 a kit and then sells it for $30 a kit, thus making a $25 profit on each one of the 1.5 million it sells each year. But still, PP is not content. The PFA would create a government-funded five-year "educational" program to promote emergency contraception and drive even more Plan B business to PP.
• Taking all federal money away from any hospital that refuses to administer emergency contraception (an abortifacient), to rape victims. Many hospitals, doctors and pharmacists have problems dispensing emergency contraception because of its abortifacient nature. Indeed, in the above-listed educational program, PP wants the government to tell the public that emergency contraception works by "preventing ovulation, fertilization of an egg, or implantation of an egg in a uterus." Yet, this section of the PFA demands that hospitals tell patients that "emergency contraception does not cause an abortion." In addition, it would require that every hospital, even Catholic, Baptist and others opposed to abortion for religious reasons, MUST provide patients with emergency contraception or lose all of their federal funding.
• Creating additional massive government funding for PP-style sex education programs (abstinence-only programs are specifically excluded from funding). Under the subprogram named "At-Risk Communities Teen Pregnancy Prevention Act," the PFA would create a program to conduct research and educational sessions for the purpose of reducing teen pregnancy. All kinds of organizations (e.g. Planned Parenthood) would receive taxpayer funds, and all kinds of theories and ways of preventing teen pregnancy could be researched and taught EXCEPT abstinence-only programs. The PFA specifically stipulates that "funds under this section are not intended for use by abstinence-only education programs. Abstinence-only education programs that receive federal funds through the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant, the Administration for Children and Families, the Adolescent Family Life Program, and any other program that uses the definition of 'abstinence education' found in section 510(b) of the Social Security Act are ineligible for funding."
• Permanently including family planning services as part of the Medicaid program. The Medicaid program was never intended to pay for family planning services. Yet, beginning in the 1990s, states started applying for Medicaid waivers to allow them to add family planning for Medicaid-eligible recipients. The federal government has approved these waivers, and their approval must be renewed, on a state-by-state basis, every five years. Because of the waivers, Medicaid is now the largest single program providing taxpayer money for PP. The PFA would do away with the need for waivers and write family planning services permanently into Medicaid, thereby opening the floodgates of taxpayer funding for PP even wider.
Note the egregiously false rhetoric.
First – "implantation of an egg in a uterus" is erroneous. The proper language is "implantation of a human zygote in the wall of the uterus." A human zygote is a human being, and the inability of this person to implant causes his or her death. Therefore an abortion occurs.
Second – suggesting that emergency contraception "does not cause an abortion" is therefore a lie. The morning-after pill can abort a human being, period!
Third – "Teen Pregnancy Prevention" is a misnomer for a program that will inundate young people with false information about the birth control pill, including the availability of abortion, should their birth control of choice fail.
I could go on, but I think you are getting the idea that the FPA is replete with deception, misinformation and government intrusion of the worst kind.
If this sounds like the Freedom of Choice Act's evil twin, then you are on the right track. This bill is everything that the Planned Parenthood Federation of America could ever hope for, summarized and neatly packaged in a piece of legislation that has gotten little to no attention.
While nearly everyone is running around waving their arms and decrying the horrors that FOCA would impose on the nation, Prevention First is quietly making a huge noise in Congress and we have to do all we can to stop it … dead in its tracks. The fact is, at least among those who have been carefully tracking both pieces of legislation, the advancing PFA is no surprise at all.
If you visit the Obama transition web site and review the statement prepared for the transition team by outside organizations, you will find that on page 13 of the 55-page "Advancing Reproductive Health in a New Administration" document, the Prevention First Act takes center stage. The claim is that, by using taxpayer dollars, this bill will reduce "unintended pregnancy and the need for abortion."
Between the lines, one finds out that what this bill is really all about is an escalating amount of government money for the marketing of abortifacient birth control devices and chemicals, brainwashing techniques for our children masquerading as sex education, and more. Whenever Planned Parenthood and its minions discuss "factual information", the buyer must beware! Such organizations and their leadership never met a fact they could not twist to suit their anti-life, anti-family agenda.
As Jim Sedlak, of our American Life League team recently told the media:
[A] large slice of the pie would go to Planned Parenthood … "and the bill would do other things including writing Title X into permanent law so that it doesn't have to be reauthorized every year." … "And Title X right now gives Planned Parenthood over $70 million a year — and they want to more than double what Title X does."
Make no mistake about it, these people are out for blood … the blood of preborn children. And while they are at it, they will prey on our young people, tantalizing them with the very sort of "education" that has created the out-of-wedlock pregnancy problem in the first place.
My advice is simple. Prevent emotional child abuse by taxpayer-funded educators … stop the Prevention First Act before it stops developing human beings from becoming all they can be.
There is a specific sort of pathology that underlies all that Planned Parenthood touches with its greedy paws, and we dare not allow that sort of disease to spread any further than it already has. For as my dear mother used to say, "You can lock a thief out, but you can't lock a liar out."
ACTION NEEDED:
1. Contact your members of Congress and let them know how you feel about the Prevention First Act.
2. Watch for updates in future issues of the Wednesday STOPP Report. We will let you know as soon as the bills are introduced in the next Congress and give you the correct bill numbers.
3. Monitor the activity in your state and take action to prevent a state PFA from passing.