Bloodthirsty Liberal

The Supreme Court hotline is temporarily experiencing heavier than usual call activity. Please wait on the line, and a Justice will be with you shortly. Your Constitutional challenge to the cluster-Fluke known as ObamaCare is important to us. Thank you for your patience:

Catholic archdioceses and institutions filed suit in federal district courts across the country Monday against the so-called contraception mandate, claiming their “fundamental rights hang in the balance.”

The plaintiffs include a host of schools and organizations, including the University of Notre Dame and the Archdiocese of New York. The lawsuits, though related, were filed individually.

The schools are objecting to the requirement from the federal health care overhaul that employers provide access to contraceptive care. The Obama administration several months back softened its position on the mandate, but some religious organizations complained the administration did not go far enough to ensure the rule would not compel them to violate their religious beliefs.

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We have tried negotiation with the Administration and legislation with the Congress – and we’ll keep at it – but there’s still no fix. Time is running out, and our valuable ministries and fundamental rights hang in the balance, so we have to resort to the courts now. … It is also a compelling display of the unity of the Church in defense of religious liberty. It’s also a great show of the diversity of the Church’s ministries that serve the common good and that are jeopardized by the mandate – ministries to the poor, the sick, and the uneducated, to people of any faith or no faith at all.

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This lawsuit is about one of America’s most cherished freedoms: the freedom to practice one’s religion without government interference. It is not about whether people have a right to abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception. Those services are, and will continue to be, freely available in the United States, and nothing prevents the Government itself from making them more widely available. But the right to such services does not authorize the Government to force the University of Notre Dame (“Notre Dame”) to violate its own conscience by making it provide, pay for, and/or facilitate those services to others, contrary to itssincerely held religious beliefs. …

If the Government can force religious institutions to violate their beliefs in such a manner, there is no apparent limit to the Government’s power. Such an oppression of religious freedom violates Notre Dame’s clearly established constitutional and statutory rights.

The First Amendment also prohibits the Government from becoming excessively entangled in religious affairs and from interfering with a religious institution’s internal decisions concerning the organization’s religious structure, ministers, or doctrine. The U.S. Government Mandate tramples all of these rights.

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[I]f one Presidential Administration can override our religious purpose and use religious organizations to advance policies that undercut our values, then surely another Administration will do the same for another very different set of policies, each time invoking some concept of popular will or the public good, with the result these religious organizations become mere tools for the exercise of government power, morally subservient to the state, and not free from its infringements. If that happens, it will be the end of genuinely religious organizations in all but name.

The Church has the force of the Constitution behind it, for all that matters. Because, as Professor Obama—sorry, Senior Lecturer Obama—told us: many believe the Constitution is a document of “negative liberties” that is silent on what the government “must do on your behalf”. If a bunch of dead white men didn’t think to order the Roman Catholic Church to sanction and provide for abortions, that’s their problem, not Sandra Fluke’s.

Anyhow, “Obamacare: The Court Case” sounds like it will run longer than Cats!

And imagine how much less sleep they’d get with all them babies crying at night!

Today the Chiaroscuro Foundation released an interactive map illustrating the abortion ratio by zip code in New York City from 2000 to 2009. This is a continuation of our effort to raise awareness of the extremely high rate of abortion in New York City.

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Our more immediate purpose in publicizing New York City’s abortion data is to make plain the reality of abortion in America under Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.

New York is one of the states with the most complete abortion license in the nation. Beyond the fact that in New York only a licensed physician can (legally) perform an abortion, and that there is a 24-week gestational age limit, a woman can procure an abortion in New York for any reason with no interference. New York City’s abortion regime is America’s abortion regime: What is emanating from the penumbras of the Constitution is the fact that in parts of Jamaica, Queens, over the last ten years, six out of every ten women with a viable pregnancy procured an abortion.

A pause here for our former reader, loony leftist Robert, to salute these women for their brave decision (or however he put it—I have to keep that quote archived).

This should come as no surprise: New York is different from the rest of the country:

Notice how different the reality on the ground in New York under Roe v. Wade is from the way the majority of all Americans, including the majority of pro-choice Americans, think it should be. Our poll of New York City residents last year found the same support among New Yorkers for sensible restrictions on abortion: 90 percent of New Yorkers support providing women with accurate information about their options and about the abortion procedure before the abortion; 63 percent oppose allowing minors to receive an abortion without parental consent, including 52 percent of pro-choice New Yorkers; and 51 percent of New Yorkers support requiring a 24-hour waiting period until the NYC abortion rate drops to the national average (pro-choice women were split on this point, 44-44).

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Abortion is not rare. It is not just something that women can resort to for that once-in-a-lifetime mistake. Abortion is commonplace in New York. More than half of all abortions in New York over the last ten years were repeat abortions. In large swaths of New York City, more than half of all viable pregnancies end in abortion. And abortion is not without consequences for women’s physical and mental health, and for their ability to have healthy pregnancies in the future. Americans and New Yorkers, even those who believe that women should have a legal right to abortion, are not indifferent toward abortion and are shocked to find out how common it is in New York City.

This article doesn’t address the racial tilt in abortion, but it’s implied in the accompanying report, which looks at rates by zip code. The Jamaica neighborhood cited above, for example, is “mostly African American.”

I accept abortion as a necessary evil in our society. I accept that it should be (in the words of the pro-choice crowd) safe, legal, and rare. But what problem are we solving, and what problem are we creating, when we concentrate abortion’s commonplace-ness in distinct ethnic neighborhoods in New York City?

Just askin’.

Peggy Noonan speaks truth to the puerile:

All this has devolved into a political argument about who’s worse, the right or the left. I don’t think that’s the most important question, but since it’s on the table the answer is the left. We all know about Bill Maher, David Letterman, Ed Schultz. A liberal radio host a while back accused the Republican lieutenant governor of Wisconsin of performing “fellatio on all the talk show hosts in Milwaukee.”

Two nonconservative columnists recently nailed it. Karen Tumulty in the Washington Post wrote that what Rush Limbaugh said two weeks ago—Sandra Fluke was a “slut” and a “prostitute” who owed the public videotapes of her having sex—was bad indeed, but “Some of the more blatantly sexist attacks I have personally felt have come from the left.”

Prize pig is left-wing journalist Matt Taibbi who becomes emotional and can’t control himself when writing about women. Here he is on a conservative media figure: “When I read her stuff, I imagine her narrating her text . . . with [male genitals] in her mouth.” Democrat Kirsten Powers, in brave pieces in the Daily Beast, called out “the army of swine on the left.” Keith Olbermann, who still exists, attacked her for defending Mr. Limbaugh, which she hadn’t done. He took to Twitter. One of his followers called her “just another brainless plastic doll Fox puts on camera to appease the horned up 60-year old white dudes at home.” Ms. Powers wryly notes, “Don’t forget: liberals are the feminists, it’s the GOP who hates women.”

Why would the left be worse? Let me be harsh. Some left-wing men think they can talk like this because they’re on the correct side on social issues such as abortion. Their attitude: “I backed you on the abortions you want so much, I opposed a ban on partial birth. Hell, I’ll let you kill kids at any point until they’re 15, I’m cool. And that means I can call women in public life t – - – s, right? Because, you know, I think of them that way.”

We’ve covered this territory before, but Noonan offers an intriguing angle. Something tragic has happened when feminism is reduced to abortion; when “women’s health” has been reduced to abortion; when any subject to do with woman is decided on the basis of only one criterion: abortion.

And I support abortion (on a safe, legal, and rare basis), monstrous as it is when you think about it for more than two seconds.

But yeah, Bill Clinton can treat women as his personal humidor, Barack Obama can call them sweethearts, Ted Kennedy can make sandwiches out of them (or worse), and they’re not waging a war on women. They are celebrated white knights, riding to redeem women’s honor (figuratively speaking).

How I wish I had known this in my single days! I would have sidled up to an attractive woman at the bar and asked if she wanted to come home with me. “Before you answer,” I would have suavely told her “You can fully expect my support for the D & C if you get knocked up. I’m pretty enlightened that way.”

What woman could resist?

They have a point:

TWO Melbourne academics have received death threats after writing a theoretical paper that argues killing a newborn baby should be allowed in cases where an abortion would have been granted.

The controversial paper, written by Alberto Giubilini, of the University of Milan and Monash University, and Francesca Minerva, of the University of Melbourne and Oxford University, was electronically pre-published in the prestigious Journal of Medical Ethics last week and titled ”After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?”

The philosophers suggest that newborns and foetuses are morally equivalent ”potential persons” whose family’s interests override theirs.

Avoiding the term ”infanticide”, the pair say ”after-birth abortion” should be permitted when disabilities, such as Down syndrome, are not detected during pregnancy, or if economic or psychological circumstances change and ”taking care of the offspring becomes an unbearable burden on someone”.

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”This debate is not new. The debate has been going on for 30 years,” she said. ”I don’t think people outside bioethics should learn anything from this paper. I’ve received hundreds of emails saying, ‘You should die’.”

Look, I don’t want anyone to die. (Well… no. No one.) But how come this broad can opine on who dies and who lives, but she takes offense when someone suggests it might be her turn? Given her credentials and the “logic” of the abortion movement, it’s way, way, wa-a-a-ay more likely that newborn babies will die at her urging than she will at anyone else’s. Since 1977, eight people have died in anti-abortion violence in America (which is at least nine too many).

As opposed to however many abortions have been committed. You do the math.

Now we’re going to quibble which side of the birth canal the larva is on? This is our culture. We now urge our elders to take the blue pill or the red pill rather than have surgery. (Still the most monstrous language I’ve ever heard come out of a non-German politician’s mouth—the same politician who once opposed a bill that would “prevent the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion.”) We are logical, rational. We can argue any position without blinking or blushing. And we are ruled by a president who dismisses the notion that the Constitution is a “charter of negative liberties”, arguing instead that it should be interpreted as what government must do “on our behalf”.

Come to think of it, how do I know it’s not my time? I can be pretty “unbearable.”

[Click here.]

Ha-ha, just kidding.

Don’t tell NOW or Planned Parenthood (a euphemism if there ever was one), but some women think something else:

GOP strategists have openly worried that the recent focus on social issues could sink Santorum’s chances among female voters in a general election and even doom his candidacy for the nomination among Republican women. But midway through their Michigan caravan, Gallagher said she has seen just the opposite, as women turn out at Santorum rallies to show their support for the former Pennsylvania senator.

“What I think women are responding to as they get to know Rick is that he is a good man,” Gallagher said. “You don’t see guys like that in politics very much.”

She called the contraception issue in particular “political clutter” and observed that Santorum’s willingness to stand by the position that he personally opposes contraception may actually have helped him among conservative women, who are looking for a leader willing to stand their ground on issues they care about. She also said that the perception that all women are liberal and pro-choice, and so would be alienated by Santorum’s positions on social issues, is wrong.

“The political narrative that women are liberal and pro-choice may be true of half the country, but the other half really care very deeply about marriage and religious liberty, and Rick Santorum is their champion,” she said. “It’s certainly not a problem for Republican women that Rick is a faithful Catholic.”

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“The tide is turning in this country. More and more women are pro-life, and they’re looking for heroes on the issue,” says Musgrave, a former Colorado congresswoman who is a vice president of the SBA List. “We can always count on Rick Santorum.”

Musgrave also said that Santorum’s personal story, including his eight children, has won over numbers of women who see him as a devoted husband and father.

“They’re very drawn to the way Rick Santorum relates to his wife and children and the way he relates to Bella,” she said, speaking of Sanoturm’s youngest daughter, who has a life-threatening genetic disorder. “He has that strength of character, but he has that tenderness as he relates to his wife and his children that is just amazing.”

I guess you could say these women think about abortion, too—at least sometimes—they just think about it differently.

And they have company:

Alan Steinberg, a New Jersey political commentator who has been advocating for a more conservative alternative to Romney, suggested that whatever support Santorum would lose among more moderate Jews he would make up in support among Jewish conservatives.

“His stance on social issues will be a plus, particularly in the Orthodox community,” he said. “He will have the Orthodox, Jewish conservatives and the pro-Israel community that is pro-Netanyahu and pro-Likud.”

Heads up, gals! The Man is messing with your “health” again!

The Calthorpe Clinic has been exposed for illicitly completing abortion forms amid concerns that doctors are not properly consulting patients before agreeing to terminations. A doctor at the clinic in Edgbaston, Birmingham, was also secretly filmed offering to arrange an abortion for a woman who said she wanted to terminate her pregnancy because the baby was a girl.

“It’s like female infanticide isn’t it?” said Dr Raj Mohan before agreeing to conduct the procedure. So-called “sex-selection” terminations are illegal.

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Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, passed a dossier of alleged malpractice at the clinic to detectives. He also referred concerns over “criminal” practices at two other abortion clinics to the police and General Medical Council.

The Daily Telegraph has this week exposed how abortion clinics across the country are illegally offering to abort foetuses on the basis of gender. There are growing concerns about such practices taking place in Britain’s abortion clinics.

Let’s be clear: there are cultures, some of which were once part of the British Empire, where female infanticide is routine and expected. Look at the imbalance between sexes in their populations. So, Britain has imported this problem, if the NAGs (National Association of Gals) will permit me to describe it as such.

Let’s also be clear: women’s health isn’t always healthy for women.

That’s the most repellant aspect of this story:

So you almost have to admire the absurdity of the new plan President Obama floated yesterday: The government will now write a rule that says the best things in life are “free,” including contraception. Thus a political mandate will be compounded by an uneconomic one—in other words, behold the soul of ObamaCare.

Under the original Health and Human Services regulation, all religious institutions except for houses of worship would be required to cover birth control, including hospitals, schools and charities. Under the new rule, which the White House stresses is “an accommodation” and not a compromise, nonprofit religious organizations won’t have to directly cover birth control and can opt out. But the insurers they hire to cover their employees can’t opt out. If that sounds like a distinction without a difference, odds are you’re a rational person.

Before we go on, I think abortion is evil. But it is a necessary evil. Just as unborn babies have rights, so do the women who carry them. Neither side should ignore the rights of the other. That abortion has existed for millennia, that it would continue even if outlawed, are lesser arguments, though still valid. It seems to me that any settlement of this issue would involve each side recognizing the “inalienable” right of the other.

But for today, anyway, that’s not what’s got my knickers in a twist:

On a conference call with reporters yesterday, a senior Administration official not known for his policy chops claimed that the new plan was “our intention all along” and that the furor is nothing more than partisan opportunism. Hmmm.

We couldn’t recall any spirit of conciliation when the birth-control mandate was finalized in January, so we went back and checked the transcript of that call with senior Administration officials. Sure enough, back then they said that the rule “reflects careful consideration of the rights of religious organizations” and that a one-year grace period “really just gives those organizations some additional time to sort out how they will be adjusting their plans.”

A journalist asked, “Just to be clear, so it’s giving them a year to comply rather than giving them a year to in any way change how they feel or the Administration to change how it feels.” Another senior official: “That is correct. It gives them a year to comply.”

Democrats in Congress wrote a law they couldn’t read (or didn’t at any rate) that gives “the Secretary” (or her boss, of course) freedom to make the law in her (his) own image. When Pelosi said we’d have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it, she was, strictly speaking, correct. The law is whatever Obama says it is on a given day. It has no existence independent of his whim or fancy.

Way back in high school civics, I learned that the legislative branch passes the laws, the executive enforces them, and the judicial interprets them. Obama has just usurped the other two functions of government. The law means what he says it means.

With apologies to pregnant teens and their unborn babies, their futures hanging in the balance, this is what disturbs me today.

You know the ACLU—defender of the little guy, champion of the underdog, bulwark against abuses of the state.

You must mean a different ACLU:

The American Civil Liberty Union announced today that President Obama’s decision to mandate coverage for birth control does not violate religious liberty.

The ACLU’s Alicia Gay warns that the “powerful lobbying arm of the Catholic Church” mistakenly claims that the HHS contraception mandate violates their religious liberty.

Individuals who choose not to pay for employees’ contraceptives, the ACLU counters, are forcing their beliefs on their employees.

“The fundamental promise of religious liberty in this country doesn’t create a right to impose those views on others, including ignoring civil rights laws or denying critical health care,” Gay insists.

Just to be clear: Catholic employers don’t object to their employees getting abortions (maybe they do, but they can’t); they object to paying for them. Which is their right under the First Amendment.

Unless the ACLU says it isn’t:

At issue, however, is that under the HHS mandate, Catholic individuals and institutions are forced to violate their religious beliefs to pay for birth control, sterilizations, and abortifacients.

Gay also criticized the bishops — who oversee the operations of 600 hospitals and 1,400 other health facilities in the United States — for failing to talk about “women’s health.”

“We know that the vast majority of women will use birth control in their lifetimes,” Gay writes, “And we know health care matters for women– be she a scientist at Norte Dame or a janitor working at St. Vincent’s Hospital – access to affordable birth control is essential for women and their families.”

Again, to be clear: no one is denying anyone their “right” to the medical care they seek. They just don’t want to have to pay for acts of “medicine” that destroy life.

But not only do they have to pay for them, they have to pay every red cent:

THE PRESIDENT: … No longer can insurance companies discriminate against women just because you guys are the ones who have to give birth. (Laughter.)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Darn right!

THE PRESIDENT: Darn tooting. (Laughter.) They have to cover things like mammograms and contraception as preventive care, no more out-of-pocket costs.

I have to pay out of pocket to get my kids’ zits looked at! What’s so wrong about about copays for women?! Where’s my free prostrate exam—not that I want one! (Especially if you get what you pay for.)

This is just the lowest form of pandering. If the ACLU would just join NOW and admit that “women’s rights” mean abortion—nothing more, and certainly nothing less—at least we’d have the benefit of an honest discussion.

Liberalism has become the state religion, and I want protection of my civil liberties!

PS: As Ross Kaminsky notes, the Catholic Church is about the only institution NOT granted a waiver under ObamaCare.

Two word response to this piece: A-men

Why should the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) decree that any of us must pay for “insurance” that covers contraceptives?

I put “insurance” in quotes for a reason. Insurance is supposed to mean a contract, by which a company pays for large, unanticipated expenses in return for a premium: expenses like your house burning down, your car getting stolen or a big medical bill.

Insurance is a bad idea for small, regular and predictable expenses. There are good reasons that your car insurance company doesn’t add $100 per year to your premium and then cover oil changes, and that your health insurance doesn’t charge $50 more per year and cover toothpaste. You’d have to fill out mountains of paperwork, the oil-change and toothpaste markets would become much less competitive, and you’d end up spending more.

Ask yourself how we got here. Our health costs has been turfed to the great faceless masses. Maybe we have a copay of $10-$25, maybe we have to pay a percentage of our premiums (unless we work in the public sector), but we pay nothing like the full cost of our routine treatment. Where else is that the case?

Health insurance has come to mean anything but “insurance”, as the author points out. As with any government program it is subject to the whims and caprices of politics.

Why did HHS add this birth-control insurance mandate—along with “well-woman visits, breast-feeding support and domestic-violence screening,” and “all without charging a co-payment, co-insurance or a deductible”—to its implementation of a provision of the new health-care reform law? “Because it promotes maternal and child health by allowing women to space their pregnancies,” says the HHS advisory panel. Because these “historic new guidelines” will make sure “women have access to a full range of recommended preventive services,” says the original HHS announcement. To “increase access to important preventive services,” echoes White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

I do not oppose birth control, breast feeding, domestic nonviolence, or well women—I support them all. But do I have to pay for them? For everybody? That’s not insurance, it’s subsidy, underwriting, bankrolling, indentured servitude.

What about the poor, you ask? What about them?

Notice the doublespeak confusion of “access” and “cost.” I have “access” to toothpaste because I have two bucks in my pocket and a competitive supplier. Anyone who can afford a cell phone can afford pills or condoms.

Poor women who can’t afford birth control are a red herring in this debate. HHS isn’t limiting this mandate to the poor anyway. We all have to pay. The very poor typically don’t have employer-provided health insurance in the first place. “Allowing women to space their pregnancies”? Was there some sort of federal ban on birth control before this?

It’s not about “access” and it’s not about “insurance.” It’s because Americans, when paying even modest co-payments, choose to spend their money on other things. They prefer a new iPod to a “wellness visit” to the doctor. As the HHS unwittingly admits: “Often because of cost, Americans used preventive services at about half the recommended rate.”

Remember, we’re supposed to be worrying about skyrocketing health-care expenses. Doubling the number of wellness visits and free pills sounds great, but who’s going to pay for it? There is a liberal dream that by mandating coverage the government can make something free.

Sorry. Every increase in coverage means an increase in premiums. If your employer is paying for your health insurance, he could be paying you more in salary instead. Or, he could be lowering prices and selling his product to you and all consumers more cheaply. Someone is paying.

We are happy to pay our taxes and pay our insurance premiums not only for our own security, but for the security of our community. But we are not happy, we are rather sad, in fact, to pay for someone else’s ease and comfort at the expense of our own. And we sure as hell don’t trust government to look out for our best interests. They would sell out the majority for the votes of privileged minorities faster than you can say “dilation and curettage”.

The federal takeover of medicine prevents us from reaching these natural compromises and needlessly divides our society.

The critics fell for a trap. By focusing on an exemption for church-related institutions, critics effectively admit that it is right for the rest of us to be subjected to this sort of mandate. They accept the horribly misnamed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and they resign themselves to chipping away at its edges. No, we should throw it out, and fix the terrible distortions in the health-insurance and health-care markets.

Sure, churches should be exempt. We should all be exempt.

Preach!

No longer does abortion account for 91% of their activities. After terminating this woman’s career, abortion is down to 90%:

Karen Handel, a vice president with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, resigned her position Tuesday following a controversy over funding for some Planned Parenthood projects, the foundation said.

Handel, the foundation’s vice president for public policy, opposes abortion. She was the driving force behind the foundation’s decision not to renew parts of its longstanding partnership with Planned Parenthood, the Huffington Post reported earlier this week after reviewing internal e-mails at the foundation.

The Komen foundation later reversed that decision after being faced with a deluge of opposition that include pressure from lawmakers and internal dissent.

Hell hath no fury like a woman counseled to keep her baby.

If people want something badly enough, they’ll pay for it:

Donors reacting to the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s decision to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood contributed $650,000 in 24 hours, nearly enough to replace last year’s Komen funding, Planned Parenthood executives said Wednesday.

The organization had raised more than $400,000 from more than 6,000 online donors as of Wednesday afternoon, compared with the 100 to 200 donations it receives on an average day, said Tait Sye, a spokesman for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. He said donations were still coming in.

That’s excellent. I couldn’t be happier. The money was always there. Planned Parenthood can still perform all the abortions they want (which is plenty—over 90% of their services), and the Komen Foundation can focus on the treatment and cure of breast cancer. It’s win-win.

They love death the way we love life:

A group of Occupy Wall Street protesters disrupted a Right to Life rally and threw condoms on Catholic school girls inside the Rhode Island state capitol building.

Barth Bracy, executive director of Rhode Island Right to Life, said their rally had to be cut short after the Occupiers began screaming and refused to allow a Catholic priest to deliver a prayer.

“This is their idea of civil speech but we believe it’s an outrage,” Bracy told Fox News & Commentary “They started heckling, chanting and blowing whistles. They shouted down a priest.”

Last week’s rally was held inside the rotunda of the state capitol in Providence. Bracy said the Occupiers, along with some pro-choice demonstrators, infiltrated the crowd of some 150 pro-lifers. He said the pro-life crowd was made up of senior citizens, mothers with young children, Cub Scouts, and school kids.

Bracy said one of the most egregious incidents occurred when an Occupier climbed to the third floor balcony and dumped a box of condoms on girls from a Catholic school.

“What kind of individual throw condoms at Catholic school girls,” Bracy asked.

Occupiers, that’s who! They see Catholic school girls, Cub Scouts, young moms, and grandmas and they want blood. Heck, they see anyone this side of a shower and they want blood. I am only surprised that they dumped clean condoms on the girls.