Nebraska to Mexican babies: Se muere

Long ago, Nebraska advertised itself as "the White Spot of the Nation," meaning the state had neither a sales tax nor an income tax.

Now, thanks to "pro-life" Gov. Dave Heineman, the state just might have to revive that slogan -- just with a somewhat different meaning.

Like, "if you're a white spot on an ultrasound," you, as a fetus, are quite all right. But if you're brown -- as in Mexican -- we don't want your kind sticking around.

That's because in Nebraska, we are so angry about illegal immigration, that ostensibly "pro-life" politicians want to punish undocumented mothers-to-be soooooo badly -- and thus reap the resulting electoral windfall -- they'd rather see brown babies dead . . . aborted . . . than be born American.

Abortions, you see, are easy. Prenatal care for the poor is not.

TRAFFICKING in deadly spite is a big part these days of what it is to be Dave Heineman: Nebraska's "white-to-life" governor. That's the practical reality, the moral reality and the political reality of at least 19 state senators standing behind (or at least not standing up to) the Republican governor's death-dealing foolishness.

Heineman and his toadies can argue motivations, but the practical reality is clear. Somehow, I don't think the political considerations would be quite so acute if Nebraska were facing being "overrun" by a wave of Scandinavian illegals. Which it isn't. This "problem" is colored brown.

Nebraska's political establishment wants little brown babies to pay for the migrational sins of their mothers so badly that it will deny them state-sponsored prenatal care even if private donors are picking up a substantial portion of the bill. That's the upshot of this Associated Press story tonight:

Opposition to taxpayer benefits for illegal immigrants appears to have trumped anti-abortion sentiments in Nebraska, likely ending an unusual collision of the two explosive political issues.

After meeting with Gov. Dave Heineman on Wednesday night, a lawmaker said the governor opposed a compromise that would continue providing state-funded prenatal care to illegal immigrants in Nebraska. Supporters of the compromise - which included the use of money from private donors - said they don't have enough votes this year to override a Heineman veto and may not have had the votes even without the governor's outright opposition.

"The chances are very slim right now," said Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha after the meeting with Heineman. Ashford crafted the proposal, which hinged on Omaha donors pitching in about $3 million this year, so women could continue receiving state-funded prenatal care. "We took a stab at it but it's clear options now are very, very limited."

Heineman characterized the meeting as "respectful and straightforward" in a statement Wednesday night.

"I have repeatedly said that I support prenatal care for legal residents," he said. "I do not support providing state-funded benefits for illegal individuals."

Lawmakers had faced a dilemma for weeks: Was it more important to care for pregnant women and their unborn children, or prevent illegal immigrants from getting taxpayer-funded benefits?

Until early this month, Nebraska had the nation's only Medicaid policy that allowed unborn children to qualify. That meant women who weren't eligible for the government-run insurance program on their own - such as illegal immigrants - got Medicaid-covered prenatal care because their unborn children qualified.

After federal officials told Nebraska it was breaking Medicaid rules, the state tried to come up with a substitute. That effort died more than a week ago.

But reports from doctors of several women saying they will have abortions instead because they couldn't afford prenatal care reignited the issue. Until Wednesday night, there appeared to be a chance lawmakers would formally consider a proposal.

(snip)

Heineman, meanwhile, has tried to stay out of the fray. Running for re-election, the Republican quietly announced his opposition to state-funded prenatal care for illegal immigrants last month in a letter to a legislative committee.

State officials say about 870 illegal immigrants and 750 legal residents including citizens lost Medicaid coverage this month when Nebraska dumped its two-decade-old Medicaid policy. More than 4,700 legal residents once considered at risk of losing coverage got to keep it because state officials found they qualified under different provisions of Medicaid.

The reports of more women seeking abortions - which some lawmakers are openly skeptical of - spurred a renewed push to create a separate, non-Medicaid program under which illegal immigrants and some legal residents would get state- and federal-funded prenatal care. Now very unlikely to be formed, it would have been created under the federal Children's Health Insurance Program, which allows unborn children to qualify for federal- and state-funded care.

DESPITE ENACTMENT this week of a landmark health-care reform law, we still live in a country -- and especially a state -- where it's much cheaper to eradicate your fetus than it is to deliver a healthy baby boy or girl. And just enough of Nebraska's "pro-life" politicians, led by the state's "pro-life" governor, are just fine with that.

Here in "the White Spot of the Nation."

Calling Gov. Pro-Life's bluff

Good on an intrepid bunch of Nebraska senators, who plan to call the "pro-life" bluff of Nebraska's baby-killer¹ governor.

They plan to give new life to a measure restoring prenantal care to poor women -- care scuttled by the arcana of federal Medicaid regulations and the restoration of which was torpedoed by Gov. Dave Heineman.

And here's what's interesting: They're going to attach the measure to the pro-life "priority bill" this legislative session -- meaning if Heineman is well and truly intent on denying medical care to poor women in the name of punishing illegal immigrants, he'll have to ruin his political career to do it.

I DON'T KNOW what was more gratifying, reading this in the Omaha World-Herald or picturing, in my minds eye, Heineman slowly twisting in the political winds:

If successful, the focus of the debate could shift from one hot-button issue to another from illegal immigration to abortion.

State Sens. Brad Ashford, Heath Mello and Jeremy Nordquist, all of Omaha, talked about their strategy to revive prenatal funding after meeting Monday with officials at OneWorld Community Health Center in south Omaha.

The lawmakers requested the gathering to learn more directly how low-income women are dealing with the state's decision to end Medicaid funding for prenatal services for poor women, many of them undocumented.

Dr. Kristine McVea, chief medical officer of OneWorld clinics, reiterated to the senators that six expectant women have told her staff in the past few weeks that they would seek to abort their babies rather than enter the clinic's prenatal program. That compares to about four abortions McVea said she knew of in the past decade.

A doctor in Schuyler, Neb., also said last week that one patient had turned to abortion and that another was considering one.

“That is why this has now taken on a new light,” Mello said. “The unfortunate proof has been brought to life.”

IN THE WAKE of this unmitigated and mean-spirited fiasco, the termination of Dave Heineman's political career is one abortion I could wholeheartedly support.

¹ If a GOP representative can call a pro-life Democratic congressman, Bart Stupak, "baby killer" over his health-care vote, what else can you say about a Republican governor whose sabotage of prenatal care for the poor prompts some to opt for abortions? Which, by the way, are much cheaper than decent prenatal care in this state.

Pro-life through the funhouse mirror

I, apparently, am the face of pro-choice America.

Me and Bart Stupak, congressman from Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We've been written right out of the ranks of pro-life Americans by Republicans, members of a party that stood strong by a president who thought it perfectly fine to honor the human dignity of "enemy combatants" through life-affirming torture sessions.

We've been condemned to pro-abortion hell by none other than Phyllis Schlafly, who said the House's final passage of health-care reform "clarified that you cannot be pro-life and be a Democrat."

One GOP congressman put an exclamation point on Stupak's pro-life excommunication by yelling "Baby killer!" at the Democrat on the House floor. It's a pity the marathon House session didn't run just a little longer, so that anonymous Republican could have gone for the tea-party hat trick by calling Barney Frank the F-word and John Lewis the N-word.

Again.

Because that's the patriotic, all-American and pro-life thing to do, apparently.

IT DOESN'T matter to the tea partiers, or to the Republican caucus, or to the nation's Catholic bishops that virtually every expert out there (except for their own) said the Senate health-care bill -- which the House was voting to ratify and send to President Obama for his signature -- was no pro-abortion document.

An interview with a law professor -- Timothy Jost of Washington and Lee -- by NPR's Robert Siegel on All Things Considered last week was particularly informative:

SIEGEL: And first, is the Senate bill more tolerant of abortion and federal spending on abortion than the House bill is?

Prof. JOST: No, it is not.

SIEGEL: In the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' statement against the Senate bill, Cardinal Francis George wrote this: The Senate bill deliberately excludes the language of the Hyde Amendment. It expands federal funding and the role of the federal government in the provision of abortion procedures.

You would say that's not true?

Prof. JOST: That is not true. The bill explicitly cross-references the Hyde Amendment at a couple of different places. One is, it provides that no federal funding for the new premium subsidies or cost-sharing reduction subsidies - the money that's going to go help people buy health insurance - that none of that money can be used to pay for abortions.

And secondly, it provides that the conscience protections, and the protections against discrimination against providers who are unwilling to provide or pay for abortion - is also preserved under the Senate bill.

(snip)

SIEGEL: You've studied both the House and the Senate bill.

Prof. JOST: Mm-hmm.

SIEGEL: How would you characterize both of them - on a crude spectrum, from pro-choice to pro-life? How do these bills look to you?

Prof. JOST: I think they are both basically pro-life bills. I think they are bills that - the Senate bill has some provisions that are stronger than the House. Senate bill, for example, provides $250 million to provide support for pregnant and parenting women who want to bear and keep a child. That's not in the House bill. So there are some provisions in the Senate bill that are stronger than the House.

The bishops prefer the approach that the House bill uses to the provisions of the Senate bill. But they're basically equivalent. Both bills prohibit federal funding for abortions through the premium subsidies. And as a practical matter, both of them are going to make it more difficult to get abortion coverage through an insurance policy. That is true under the status quo.

SIEGEL: Professor Jost, you've been studying health law for quite a while. Is there something about these bills that is especially confusing or opaque that would lead to these very different interpretations, whether one is much more pro-life than the other? Or are people just being tendentious in their readings of these two bills?

Prof. JOST: I think people are being distrustful in their reading. I think that there's a tendency to sort of assume the devious motives on the parts of others, you know - which may, in part, be justified. This has been a pretty intense debate in our country.

But I think in this case, it is just not justified, that - I think that the senators who drafted these amendments are pro-life senators who intended to make sure that federal funding doesn't go for abortion. And so I think that there's sort of an unwarranted belief that people are proceeding in bad faith when in fact, they're proceeding in the best of good faith and trying to achieve the same goals.

AND THUS Stupak and his tiny band of pro-life (er . . . baby killing?) House Democrats sought refuge in the cover of a presidential executive order reaffirming what already was plain in the Senate language. That Obama even would compromise that much infuriated pro-choice advocacy groups.

Unfortunately for Democrat pro-lifers, it seems there is no cover from zealots eager to excommunicate from the pro-life movement anyone deemed less pure -- or less right-wing -- than themselves. Pity poor Bart Stupak, for there most certainly is no cover from wild-eyed Republicans' verbal brickbats in the "people's house."

He's not a Catholic lawmaker acting in good faith as he exercises his prudential judgment on legislation that's as pro-life as he has the power to make it -- a bill most "experts" say is pretty pro-life indeed.

No, Bart Stupak is a "baby killer." A traitor. An ex-pro-lifer.

Someone, in the words of Schlafly, who "will be forever remembered as being among the deciding votes which facilitated the largest expansion of abortion services since Roe v. Wade."

IT MATTERS not a whit that any of this is only true in the peculiarly peculiar alternate universe inhabited by the Republican Party and their useful -- and angry -- idiots in professional pro-liferism. Ask Ben Nelson; he got the Stupak treatment before Stupak got the Stupak treatment.

When you so sell your political soul down that particular River of Denial, it's easy to equate "pro-life" with a party willing to see 47 million (and climbing) Americans subsist with no health insurance at all. It's no big whoop to equate saving lives with maintaining the status-quo probability of losing everything if you get sick enough.

In the funhouse-mirror world of professional, political pro-liferism -- or perhaps the better term is "anti-abortionism" -- it's far better to maintain a system where it's a lot cheaper for low-income, uninsured women to get an abortion than it is for them to get prenatal care. See "Nebraska, State of" and "Heineman (R-Neb.), Gov. Dave."

Anti-abortionism is good with all that, just so long as it keeps civil society unsullied by health-care reform legislation that's merely "pretty good, considering" from a pro-life perspective instead of the New Jerusalem come down to earth. Yesterday.

The tyranny of dying for lack of decent health care -- the tyranny of money being, in too many cases, the final arbiter between living and dying if you're sick in America -- is really the preservation of liberty . . . or so we're told by the voices coming from the funhouse. Tyranny is only tyranny if it's the tyranny of "socialized medicine."

Elder care is "death panels," prenatal care is an abortion waiting to happen, fundamentally pro-life legislation is "the largest expansion of abortion services since Roe v. Wade" . . . and Bart Stupak is a "baby killer."

THESE VOICES -- the ones from the funhouse . . . the ones in the heads of those deep inside political pro-liferism -- come up with the damnedest things indeed. Like this:

George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States, will be the featured speaker at the 27th annual Life Centers Celebration of Life fund-raiser in Indianapolis. President Bush will join special musical guest, Grammy Award-winning artist Sandi Patty, and 2009 Miss America Katie Stam at Conseco Fieldhouse on Thursday, April 15 at 7pm.

"We are honored to welcome President George W. Bush, whose strong record on life issues demonstrates his belief that every life matters," Brian Boone, Life Centers president and CEO, said. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to celebrate life - with a keynote address from a public servant who made the sanctity of human life a priority."

The proceeds from the event will benefit Life Centers, a nonprofit Christian ministry which helps women in unplanned pregnancies by providing free services including pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, confidential peer counseling, 24-hour help line calls, post-abortion and maternity support at its eight pregnancy resource centers across Central Indiana.

"We are grateful that President George W. Bush will inspire our community to create a culture of life at the crossroads of America and to show compassion to women in unplanned pregnancies," Boone said.

THE GEORGE W. BUSH who approved federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. The George W. Bush of waterboarding fame. The George W. Bush who went to war in Iraq for, as it turns out, no discernible reason other than to "get" Saddam Hussein and to "establish freedom."

The George W. Bush of torture at Abu Ghraib, torture at secret CIA prisons and torture at Guantanamo.

The pro-life movement -- or, more precisely, the political operatives and conservative ideologues who've hijacked the pro-life movement -- say Bart Stupak is a baby killer and that neither of us are real pro-life Catholics.

To be authentically "pro-life" is to take marching orders from one bunch to whom George Bush is a hero?

To be a real pro-life Catholic is to treat as holy writ the political judgments of a "hapless bench of bishops" ostensibly capable of deciphering the pro-life bona fides of health-care policy but decidedly less facile at keeping pervy priests from diddling little boys? I'll declare unyielding fealty to Catholic bishops' take on health-care reform when they take responsibility for their own complicity in perpetuating the moral horror of sexual abuse in the church.

Deal?

GO AHEAD, "pro-life" movement. Excommunicate me, and Bart Stupak, and U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, and every other "formerly pro-life Democrat" for thinking that the health-care reform proposal ratified by the House was "good enough for government work."

We'll see you in hell.

Kill a baby for the Red, White and Blue!

Bienvenidos a América, where poor lives are cheap, poor Mexican lives are cheaper . . . and abortion is cheaper still.

That's certainly the case in Nebraska, where if you're Gov. Dave Heineman or one of the Legislature's immigration hawks, the cold political reality is that it pays to be "pro-life, but. . . ."

And while Gov. Snow White and the Way More Than Seven Dwarfs stand in the "anti" room of the legislative chamber and congratulate themselves on all the things they're against -- government spending, illegal immigration, abortion -- comes the news from all over Nebraska.

NEWS TODAY from the Omaha World-Herald:

A Schuyler, Neb., doctor voiced frustration Wednesday as he described the fallout he has already seen from the loss of government-funded prenatal care for some low-income women.

One pregnant woman opted for an abortion three weeks ago because she felt she couldn't afford to pay for prenatal care, said Dr. John Jackson of Memorial Hospital in Schuyler.

A second patient is seriously considering terminating her pregnancy, although he is trying to talk her out of it, Jackson said.

Several pregnant women among his mostly Hispanic patients in the meatpacking town have quit coming for prenatal visits because of the out-of-pocket costs, he said, and one asked if he would come to her house to deliver her baby.

Jackson said the women are doing the math: With incomes of as little as $150 every two weeks, it's hard to pay for $50 diabetes tests or the $750 to $1,000 cost of prenatal care. By comparison, an abortion at a Lincoln clinic costs $500 to $550.

“If you actually want to solve the immigration problem, solve that,” the family physician said.

“Why am I putting a baby's life at risk? That's not right.”

Jackson spoke Wednesday, shortly after a bill was killed in the Nebraska Legislature that would have restored government-funded, prenatal care for low-income pregnant women, including many who are illegal immigrants.

Fremont Sen. Charlie Janssen, who opposed the measure, said that while the abortion was sad, it was most likely unrelated to the end of prenatal care coverage.

“The illegal immigrants we're talking about, I believe, are still going to get their prenatal care from a different source than the Nebraska taxpayers, who are already strapped,” Janssen said.

Gov. Dave Heineman had opposed the bill, saying taxpayer-funded benefits should not be afforded to women who are living in the United States illegally.

Heineman on Tuesday rejected a proposed compromise that would have extended the prenatal aid only to those women who were already pregnant.

His decision led Lincoln Sen. Kathy Campbell, the sponsor of Legislative Bill 1110, to pull the measure from Wednesday's agenda, killing it. Not enough senators supported the bill to overcome an expected veto from the governor, she said.

Heineman declined to comment on the reported abortion.

NEWS FROM The Associated Press:

Some opponents said it came down to the proposal's nearly $7 million estimated price tag.

"More so than the illegal immigrant issue, it was the fiscal impact," said Sen. Greg Adams of York, who originally supported Campbell's bill but was undecided when the bill was pulled.

With the funding now gone, there are signs that the emotional and financial strains on women and families could lead to more abortions, said Dr. Kristine McVea, a pediatrician and medical director of OneWorld Community Health centers, which caters to low-income families at 26 facilities statewide, including many Hispanics.

"This population is very family oriented and really loves children, so I can count on one hand the women I've come in contact with over the last five years that have chosen to have an abortion," McVea said in an interview. "Since all this came about, two women have said they're going to get abortions. We haven't been able to talk them out of it."

SO THE NEXT TIME you see a Republican law-and-order fiscal hawk who goes on and on and on about how "pro-life" he is, ask yourself a couple of questions.

Like, "Is this guy pro-life, or just anti-abortion . . . but only when it doesn't get in the way of not spending taxpayer dollars or accidentally helping an illegal alien or three?" And like, "Am I REALLY casting a vote to make society more 'pro-life,' or am I just voting for some phony who just might do more for the Nebraska abortion industry than a roomful of Leroy Carharts?"

Dear pro-life movement: You've just been "pwned."

Pro-death sins of omission

There's a difference between anti-abortion and pro-life. Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman is the former, not the latter.

And as such, he does not deserve the support of any Nebraskan who calls himself -- or herself -- the latter. In a story today, the Omaha World-Herald succinctly outlines the difference between anti-abortion and pro-life:

Gov. Dave Heineman has rejected a proposed compromise to the controversial resumption of government-paid prenatal care for low income women, including hundreds here illegally.

That was the word Tuesday afternoon from State Sen. Kathy Campbell, who had attempted to seek a middle ground to the political storm that had pitted pro-life and medical organizations against anti-immigration groups and Gov. Heineman.

"I'm disheartened," said Campbell, of Lincoln.

The future of her proposal, Legislative Bill 1110, is unclear.

As originally drafted, it would have restored government-funded prenatal care in response to a federal directive that, as of March 1, ended such services for about 1,500 pregnant women, including about 800 illegal immigrants.

On Monday, Campbell had floated a compromise that would allow women that are currently pregnant, or those who signed up for services by April 17, to continue to receive prenatal services until their deliveries.

It was viewed as a fairer end to the services.

NO ONE even in the neighborhood of "mainstream" condones illegal immigration -- except, of course, for unethical, criminal "businessmen" who exploit undocumented workers for financial gain.

That said, however, because one stands in favor of the law, it does not follow that one must stand against basic human decency. Against basic human dignity. Against the humanity of people without proper papers and named, for example, Martinez, as opposed to Svendsen.

Because illegal immigration is bad, it does not make it good for a state -- or its political leadership -- to treat illegal immigrants as less than human, less than deserving of basic medical care. In fact, it's abominable.

The Declaration of Independence -- a favorite of the "patriots" to whom Heineman is trying to suck up -- wasn't referring to just Americans, though the unborn children of undocumented women here most certainly will be United States citizens upon birth.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

CALL ME A commie, but it seems to me that the unalienable right to life is considerably more expansive than the right not to be aborted. It seems to me there is precious little difference between eradicating a helpless human being in the womb and letting that life be lost or compromised due to willful neglect -- all in a land of unimaginable wealth.

When you consider that all the data show it costs the state far, far less money to provide poor women -- legal and illegal -- prenatal care than to deal with the medical consequences lack of care often leads to, that willful neglect becomes abjectly sinister.

And now the battered pro-life movement reels amid the realization that wasting its time and treasure on electing anti-abortion politicians has gotten it no closer to building a pro-life culture. The siren song of sinister pols like Dave Heineman has led good people to the abyss they sought so desperately to avoid.

The right side of the Grand Canyon is no less deadly to leap into than the left.

What's so tragic is that pro-lifers who put an anti-abortion death dealer like Heineman into office never figured that out until they were halfway to becoming a grease spot on the dust.

Look at the demon, not at us

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Nebraska's senior man in the U.S. Senate got the best deal he could where the politics of abortion meets the politics of health care, leaving everybody really, really hacked off.

In fact, if you listen to the Republicans and the utterly politicized pro-life groups, you'd think poor Ben Nelson was lighting the fuse on Apocalypse Now -- the useful idiot, but an utterly devious and malevolent one, from the Great State of Nebraska who just handed Barack Hussein Antichrist Obama the keys to hundreds of millions of good Christian souls.

BUT IF you read The Associated Press' account of things, it sounds a lot less Mark of the Beast-ish:

The Senate compromise was reached after hours of intense negotiation between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and key senators on both sides of the issue.

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who opposes abortion, had threatened to withhold a critical 60th vote for the bill unless restrictions on abortion funding were tightened. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., represented supporters of abortion rights, who wanted to preserve coverage already available.

Nelson said Saturday that the Senate bill essentially uses different means to achieve the same goals as the House bill, which included tight limits on abortion funding praised by U.S. Catholic bishops.

The health care bill would create a new stream of government subsidies to help people buy health insurance, largely through private plans. The subsidies would be available to those buying coverage through a new insurance supermarket called an exchange. Since abortion is a legal medical procedure now covered by many insurers, activists on both sides mobilized to try to shape the legislation.

The House bill includes Stupak's amendment, which bars plans operating in the exchange from paying for most abortions. The only exceptions would be those currently allowed by federal law. Women wanting coverage for abortion would have to purchase a separate policy.

Reid's bill sets up a mechanism to segregate funds used to pay for abortions from federal subsidy dollars.

No health plan would be required to offer coverage for the procedure. In plans that do cover abortion, beneficiaries would have to pay for it separately, and those funds would have to be kept in a separate account from taxpayer money.

Moreover, individual states would be able to prohibit abortion coverage in plans offered through the exchange, after but passing specific legislation to that effect. The only exceptions would be those allowed under current federal law.

YOU KNOW, I wish the language was a lot more strict, too. In fact, I wish abortion on demand was just flat illegal. And better yet, I wish no woman ever felt so out of options that she'd even consider snuffing out the life of her unborn child.

But in a move that's so shocking as to not be believable -- that is, at least, if you know me -- I'm far too subtle to ever become a professional pro-lifer. Here's what it takes to play with the big boys, as evidenced by the reaction of Nebraska Right to Life:

"There is no pro-life Nebraskan more devastated by Senator Nelson's actions than myself." said [Executive Director Julie] Schmit-Albin. "I have defended his record to Nebraskans and believed that he would stand on pro-life principles as he has on numerous occasions in the past. I have had a good relationship with Senator Nelson and his staff throughout the years . I personally met with him on healthcare in July and in mid-November and have been in frequent contact with his staff over the past six weeks. Just Wednesday afternoon, I was apprised of the Casey language by his staff and I urged them to strongly relay to him that we could not support it. When he rejected the Casey language we were bolstered by that action and believed he would hold firm to his commitment to vote against cloture if Stupak language was not included."

"Moreover, NRL Political Action Committee gave Senator Nelson a sole endorsement in his re-election race in 2006 based on his record and actions both as Governor and Senator." said Schmit-Albin. "It is a very sobering day for myself personally and for pro-lifers across Nebraska and the nation. Senator Nelson obliterated the hope of pro-life Americans who saw him as the last man standing between expansion of government funding of abortion and the Hyde Amendment."

THE CATHOLIC bishops' conference also is less than happy, according to The Washington Post:

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also said the plan was unacceptable, adding in a statement the bill "should be opposed" unless there are changes. "It does not seem to allow purchasers who exercise freedom of choice or of conscience to 'opt out' of abortion coverage in federally subsidized health plans that include such coverage," it said.

UMM HMM. But here's the deal: The "Nelson compromise" is probably the best they'll get without blowing up the whole thing. It's also the closest thing they'll get to what had been floated (not in Congress, notably) as a reasonable compromise -- requiring the purchase of a separate private "rider" policy for abortion coverage in federally-subsidized policies. [Actually, the "rider" approach is implicit in the House "Stupak Amendment" language, which Nelson offered, and was handily voted down, in the Senate.]

What the bishops and pro-lifers are demanding in health-care reform is something not one of them has agitated for in the present system, where 86 percent of all private insurance plans cover abortion. And unless you're wealthy enough to buy an individual policy of your own choosing, you can't "opt out," and your premiums will go toward paying to kill somebody's unborn baby.

Where's the outrage? Dead babies are dead babies, right? Is it any more immoral that one's premium dollars are funding abortions than one's tax dollars maybe funding abortions?

What we have here is a failure of logic.

What we also have here is a bunch of feckless guardians of society's most vulnerable members fighting a war for hearts and minds on the most unfriendly terrain possible -- Capitol Hill. Of course, that's just a distraction aimed at covering up the utter defeat of the church and the rest of our "culture warriors" in the battle for our . . . culture.

The political grows out of the cultural -- not vice versa -- and if you've lost the culture, politics is a futile pursuit. That pro-lifers and churchmen are too stupid to recognize that plain fact (and so obviously incompetent at softening hearts much less stony than your average Washington insider's) is a prime indicator why they so regularly get rolled by politicians.

The desperate tone of the next fund appeal you get will be as good an indicator as any of how that's working out for the unborn.

Loving abortion to death

How can we Democrats of the non-whack persuasion make this any clearer?

OK, how about this? You can kill the Stupak Amendment, or you can have health-care reform. You can't do both.

Or, perhaps this: You can double-cross pro-life Democratic congressmen and reintroduce what amounts to federal subsidies for killing babies, or you can pass a health-care bill. But both won't happen, because you don't have the votes.

WHAT ARE Americans to make of people for whom the "right" to abortion now means the "right" to government subsidies for abortion? How quickly a "private" matter that must be safe from governmental meddling -- one that's "between a woman, her doctor and her God" -- turns into a non-negotiable demand that the public subsidize something at least half of it finds reprehensible.

And the Culture of Death's caterwauling storm troopers are marching for their "right" to have you fund their "right" to kill their offspring. One company comes from the AAUW, formerly known as Women So Open Minded Their Brains Fell Out the American Association of University Women:

AAUW is working nationwide to galvanize voters to protest the middle class abortion ban passed by the House as part of its health care reform bill. It's critical that the Senate not accept this intrusive provision.

ACCORDING to the outraged left, forcing me to violate my conscience by force of the tax code and the Justice Department would be a blow against the "intrusiveness" of women having to buy an abortion rider to their insurance policy:

AAUW has long advocated for choice in the determination of one's reproductive life and increased access to health care and family planning services. There's no doubt that health care reform is desperately needed, but it should not come on the backs of women. A fundamental principle of health care has always been to "do no harm." Make no mistake; the Stupak amendment does just that--leaving millions of women worse off than they were before. This is the biggest attempt to ban abortion services in years, and a similar amendment is already in the works in the Senate.

AH . . . I get it now, AAUW. You have the choice to kill your unborn -- or even your half-born -- child, and I have the choice to pay for it. Or else.

Gotcha. I'm so glad we could have this talk and clear some things up, AAUW.

What you're saying is you want me to help pay for your abortions so you can f*** with impunity, because it's your constitutional right. But my First Amendment rights do not include declining on moral and religious grounds to help pay for your abortions (thus killing your children so you can continue to f*** with impunity and not live in a trailer with seven kids by six fathers), because that would deny you your "privacy right" to kill your kids so you can f*** with impunity.

Is that what you're saying?

Please tell me where I'm wrong, because I'd hate to think educated women so upset about the "middle-class abortion ban" would be so bigoted as to only worry about a lack of "reproductive choice" when it's your "middle-class" abortion that's threatened. Or have I missed your going to the wall year after year for the past three decades in a bid to dispatch the Hyde Amendment -- which denies federal funds for things like Medicaid abortions -- to the dustbin of history?

OR MAYBE you think it's OK for poor women to pay for their constitutional coitus with a lifestyle approximating the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, while the taxpayer subsidizes your "safe sex" -- contraception and abortion.

After all, there still would be Medicaid . . . and the Hyde Amendment still stands.

But the bottom line is this: Double-cross pro-life Democrats, and health-care reform is dead . . . and so, probably, is the Obama presidency. The president only has, oh . . . everything riding on this.

And if health-care reform dies, pro-life Dems will say this:

"We voted on principle. We cannot subsidize evil so that good might come from it. We will not pay to kill some so that others might have insurance. This is a tragedy, but we take seriously the principle of 'Do no harm.'"

MEANWHILE, if pro-choicers kill health-care reform because it insufficiently subsidizes abortion (and no, you can't "segregate" private and public monies when it all goes into the same pot), they'll have to say this:

"We voted down health-care reform on principle. We firmly believe that the government should make it as cost-free as possible for women to procure elective abortions of their babies. We knew going to the wall for this would doom the bill, but we think the right to federally mandated abortion coverage is a lot more important than your piddly-ass chemotherapy."

THEY DON'T call it the Culture of Death for nothing.

A special kind of nuts

What kind of insanity would cause supporters of health-care reform to declare war on the only thing keeping health-care reform from legislative oblivion?

THIS KIND of insanity, is what. The Hill fills us in:

A House Democratic leader said Monday she's “confident” controversial language on abortion will be stripped from a final healthcare bill.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the Democrats’ chief deputy whip in the House, said that she and other pro-abortion rights lawmakers would work to strip the amendment included in the House health bill that bars federal funding from subsidizing abortions.

“I am confident that when it comes back from the conference committee that that language won't be there,” Wasserman Schultz said during an appearance on MSNBC. “And I think we're all going to be working very hard, particularly the pro-choice members, to make sure that's the case.”

The amendment, offered by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), won the support of Republicans and dozens of centrist Democrats in the House, but revealed a deep divide in the Democratic caucus over abortion.

Sixty-four Democrats voted for Stupak’s amendment, without which the House healthcare bill would not have won final passage in a 220-215 vote.

THE STUPAK AMENDMENT provided the thin margin by which health-care reform passed the House. Without it, you can bet it won't pass the Senate.

And if it's stripped in conference -- assuming Senate passage of a bill, which well might be a long shot -- the legislation will fail in the House. Really, what kind of insanity causes alleged supporters of health-care reform to intentionally doom what they say they're for?

I suppose the same kind of insanity that causes a society to execute its future in the womb and call it women's rights . . . even though at least half of the condemned are women.

And if you're OK with flat-out elimination of society's least powerful and least privileged members, what's the big whoop with telling those vastly more able to fend for themselves to "root, hog, or die," right?

The House's prescription

For once, you have to give the U.S. House of Representatives credit. It pulled off the previously unthinkable.

And a good kind of unthinkable, at that.

After decades and decades, it finally passed something that's as close to universal health coverage as is likely to survive an American legislative chamber. Now if only the Senate would get on board. . . .

THE HEROES of the fight for health-care reform -- at least thus far -- are Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and his band of pro-life Democrats. They won a ban on federal subsidies for abortion in the House bill and, in the process, assured its final passage.

MSNBC has the story:

"It provides coverage for 96 percent of Americans. It offers everyone, regardless of health or income, the peace of mind that comes from knowing they will have access to affordable health care when they need it," said Rep. John Dingell, the 83-year-old Michigan lawmaker who has introduced national health insurance in every Congress since succeeding his father in 1955.

In the runup to a final vote, conservatives from the two political parties joined forces to impose tough new restrictions on abortion coverage in insurance policies to be sold to many individuals and small groups. They prevailed on a roll call of 240-194.

The vote added to the Democratic bill an amendment sponsored by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and others, that prohibits individuals who receive insurance subsidies from purchasing any plan that pays for elective abortions.

House Democratic leaders agreed Friday night to allow a floor vote on the Stupak amendment to the bill in order to win the support of about three dozen Democrats who feared that the original bill would have subsidized abortions.

Ironically, the abortion vote only solidified support for the legislation, clearing the way for the conservative Democrats to vote for it.

A cheer went up from the Democratic side of the House when the bill gained 218 votes, a majority. Moments later, Democrats counted down the final seconds of the voting period in unison, and and let loose an even louder roar when Pelosi grabbed the gavel and declared, "the bill is passed.'

From the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada issued a statement saying, "We realize the strong will for reform that exists, and we are energized that we stand closer than ever to reforming our broken health insurance system."

(snip)

The compromise brokered Friday night on the volatile issue of abortion finally secured the votes needed to pass the legislation.

As drafted, the measure denied the use of federal subsidies to purchase abortion coverage in policies sold by private insurers in the new insurance exchange, except in cases of incest, rape or when the life of the mother was in danger.

But abortion foes won far stronger restrictions that would rule out abortion coverage except in those three categories in any government-sold plan. It would also ban abortion coverage in any private plan purchased by consumers receiving federal subsidies.

Disappointed Democratic abortion rights supporters grumbled about the turn of events, but appeared to pull back quickly from any thought of opposing the health care bill in protest.

GOING TO THE WALL for abortion coverage, to state the painfully obvious, would not have been pragmatic. If you want to build a workable coalition around an already-controversial bill, you don't go around actively chasing off allies.

Like the Catholic Church, for one. Or pro-life Democrats, like Stupak and his confederates, for about 40 others.

It can't be emphasized too much that only by doing the "right thing" did Democrats save health-care reform from sudden legislative death.

It also can't be emphasized too much that the House has neutralized the biggest weapon in the anti-reformist arsenal. If one opposed health-care legislation on pro-life grounds, that's non-negotiable. That's something over which you "go to the wall."

Now, not so much.

Now, if pro-lifers are going to oppose health-care reform, they're going to have to explain how opposing coverage for millions and millions of the uninsured might be considered a "pro-life" move. They're going to have to explain how the perpetuation, by default, of a fundamentally unjust system responsible for the needless deaths of an estimated 44,789 Americans a year isn't a profound betrayal of the pro-life cause.

And you know what? They can't.

NO, IF "PRO-LIFERS" want to persist in railing about "socialized medicine" instead of getting behind an imperfect but as-good-as-we'll-get House-passed bill, they're going to have to admit that the pro-life movement -- or at least the K Street manifestation thereof -- really is nothing more than an anti-abortion movement.

I can think of no greater travesty . . . no greater affront to a God who, it has been rumored over 6,000 or so years of Judeo-Christian history, continues to care deeply about human beings once they emerge from the womb.

In today's deeply toxic and deeply stupid political culture, I am sure what I've just written will get me branded a "radical socialist" by more than a few. Well, if this be socialism, I will wear the "socialist" label with pride.

Forgetting to stick to the script

In Fresno, Calif., a pro-choicer forgets the "violent pro-lifers are really scaring us poor defenseless victims, oh please help us somebody" script and unshackles her inner Rambo.

I forget . . . who's the victim here again?

"Fascist piece of s***, hates women's rights. F*** you! F*** you! F*** you!"

AH . . . if only Bob Dylan had had such a muse as this in the early '60s. It wouldn't quite have been akin to the Beatific Vision, but -- f*** me -- to the righteous' ears, it would f***ing be as if we f***ing gazed upon the chimes of f***ing freedom flashing.

On George Tiller

George Tiller is dead, victim of an especially late-term abortion.

The doctor -- who specialized in late-term abortions at his Wichita, Kan., clinic -- fell victim to someone with murder in his heart and a gun in his hand. From a dispatch by The Associated Press:

The gunman fled, but a 51-year-old suspect was arrested some 170 miles away in suburban Kansas City three hours after the shooting, Wichita Deputy Police Chief Tom Stolz said. Johnson County sheriff's spokesman Tom Erickson identified the man in custody as Scott Roeder, who has not been charged in the slaying.

President Barack Obama said he was shocked and outraged over the killing.

Long a focus of national anti-abortion groups, including a summer-long protest in 1991, Tiller was serving as an usher during Sunday morning services when he was shot in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church, Stolz said. Tiller's attorney, Dan Monnat, said Tiller's wife, Jeanne, was in the choir at the time.

Stolz said all indications were that the man acted alone, although authorities were investigating whether he had any connection to anti-abortion groups.

Stolz said the man being held would likely be charged Monday with one count of murder and two of aggravated assault. Stolz said the gunman threatened two people who tried to stop him.

The slaying of the 67-year-old doctor is "an unspeakable tragedy," his widow, four children and 10 grandchildren said in statement issued by Monnat. "This is particularly heart-wrenching because George was shot down in his house of worship, a place of peace."

IT IS SAID in the Talmud that "whoever destroys one soul is regarded by the Torah as if he had destroyed a whole world and whoever saves one soul, is regarded as if he had saved a whole world."

Some right-wing, allegedly Christian whack jobs are celebrating the death of a man who committed great evil. But is George Tiller's judge, jury and executioner -- at least by God's standard -- any better than someone who might, if it were possible, abort millions of late-term fetuses single-handedly?

Would not both have "destroyed a whole world"?

In addition, Tiller's murderer -- through this orgy of death directed against a child of God -- will have done grave damage to a movement seeking to promote respect for the lives of humanity's most vulnerable members.

WHEN IT COMES DOWN to it, Tiller merely was an executioner, carrying out death sentences passed down by a parade of people for a plethora of reasons. Tiller was just the last stop for mothers and their unborn children on a hell-bound train conceptualized by Satan, assembled by fallen and hardened hearts, driven by elites in love with "final" solutions, stoked by politicians, switched onto the main line by materialism and ridden by the selfish and the desperate alike.

But Tiller's killer . . . now he represents a special breed. This was the kind of monster who can do the devil's work and convince himself it was the Lord's idea. This was someone who set himself up as judge, jury and executioner, then said to hell with the trial.

Whoever pulled the trigger on George Tiller unilaterally decided a nation of hit men was a far superior concept to a nation of laws, and he was just the Goodfella for the job.

IF WE HOPE to remain a nation of laws and not of warlords, the full weight of what law we have left must fall upon the gunman who took it upon himself to abort the abortionist. Or, to paraphrase Fox anchor Shepard Smith, "We are America. We do not f***ing assassinate people."

Roughly a generation ago, Pope John Paul II coined a term to describe a way of life such as ours. He called it the Culture of Death.

Basically, we are a society that figures most problems can be solved by somebody -- either in the womb or out -- ending up dead. We find death, in all its forms, strangely compelling . . . and we get what we value.

George Tiller's assassin deemed death an appropriate solution to the problem of a death-dealer and acted accordingly. In doing so, this "defender of life" became just another death-dealer -- another destroyer of a whole world -- establishing himself as another antihero of our anticulture.

The Culture of Death: It's not just for the George Tillers of the world.

It's also for all those who, in the name of God, decide they will become as gods and mete out divine vengeance accordingly.

Of tinfoil hats and saving babies

I don't know how I missed this bit of spastic-colon knotheadedness last month, but I did -- and it was right here in the Great State of Nebraska, out west in Hastings.

Unsurprisingly, the really angry man of the Republican Party, Alan Keyes, was Ground Zero of the angst-induced lower-GI spasticity. In a political party full of angry men (and women), the perennial candidate always manages to stand out.

In the above interview with KHAS television, the man all but dons a tinfoil hat to keep the Obama NSA from reading his brain waves. That's the National Security Agency under the control of the "radical communist" Barack Obama, illegitimate president of the United States, which will soon cease to exist if we don't "stop" him.

UNFORTUNATELY, the Most Pissed-Off Man in America was in Hastings for a Triple-A Crisis Pregnancy Center fund-raiser. Doubly unfortunately, Keyes' appearance on behalf of the pro-life organization both detracts from the good work done by crisis-pregnancy centers and illuminates every single thing that's wrong with the movement today.

Foremost would be pro-lifers' failure to apprehend that culture precedes politics, and if you can't change hearts and minds, you're not going to get very far with any political assault against the "culture of death." Because it's a culture of death.

And, really, can you imagine any more glaring demonstration of such cultural and public-relations blindness than inviting an angry, articulate wingnut like Alan Keyes to be the face of your movement -- if only for a day? Or, if you're counting the YouTube universe . . . forever.

After all, nothing says "We're compassionate, reasonable people who want to help women and stand up for the most vulnerable of human lives" than this from "Ambassador" Keyes, as he likes to be called:

"Obama is a radical communist and I think it is becoming clear. That is what I told people in Illinois and now everybody realizes it's coming true. He is going to destroy this country and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist."

OR PERHAPS these bon mots:

"That's another question: Is he president of the United States? According to the Constitution, to be eligible for president, you have to be a natural-born citizen. He has refused to provide proof that he is in fact a natural-born citizen. And his Kenyan relations say he was born in Nairobi at a time when his mother was too young to transmit U.S. citizenship.

"So I'm not even sure he's president of the United States. No, that's not a laughing matter."

WELL, ACTUALLY, when Keyes says it, it kind of is.

We're in bad trouble in this country. We may or may not be sliding into another Great Depression. We may or may not possess the social and infrastructure capital to soldier through if we, indeed, are.

In so many ways, we are a nation divided. And, yes, we are enveloped by a "culture of death," where folks find it more expedient to rub out human "burdens" than carry them -- either to term or to a natural exit from this mortal coil.

We don't need bomb-throwers out there dropping their crazy pants to show their crazy ass to all the world, with one cheek tattooed "PRO" and the other one "LIFE." Hell, we don't need any bomb-throwers out there, period -- no matter what crazy-ass labels they sport.

The stakes are high, tempers are short, and just about anything says "love thy neighbor" so much better than Alan Keyes.

Kool-Aid v. Kool-Aid

The Catholic Kool-Aid drinkers for the Party of Mammon, Greed and War have scored a great triumph, repudiating and purging from the Franciscan University of Steubenville a Catholic Kool-Aid drinker for the Party of Abortion.

IN REVIEWING this report from LifeNews.com, Jesus must be so proud of the Catholic Church in America:

A pro-life former law professor Nicholas Cafardi, the former dean of the Duquesne University Law School, has quit his position on the board of trustees for Franciscan University of Steubenville. Cafardi's decision comes after he received criticism for endorsing pro-abortion presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Cafardi recently issued an endorsement for Obama and claimed the pro-life movement is dead -- drawing a strong rebuke from pro-life advocates.

Franciscan University issued a statement saying Cafardi did not represent the views of the college, but it appears Cafardi has resigned on his own without pressure from university officials.

Catholic writer Deal Hudson, who has been following the controversy, tells LifeNews.com about the latest events.

"Dr. Terrence Henry, president of the Franciscan University of Steubenville, has just told me that he received a letter of resignation yesterday from [Cafardi]," he said.

"Fr. Henry stressed that Dr. Cafardi's resignation from the board of Franciscan University was voluntary and had in no way been requested by the University," Hudson added. "Henry added that he was 'grateful' for Cafardi's letter."

"Cafardi's continued presence on the Franciscan University board became an issue several weeks ago when he publicly endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president," Hudson said.

Cafardi became the second prominent Catholic attorney to endorse Obama, following Doug Kmiec of Pepperdine University -- who has been the subject of significant criticism from pro-life advocates.

Cafardi based his endorsement on two points - claiming the pro-life movement has "permanently" lost the abortion battle and saying voting for Obama can be justified on other political issues.

But Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, disagreed.

"If you think the battle against abortion has been lost permanently, then you are asserting that the battle for America and civilization itself have been lost," Pavone says. "So don't trouble yourself one way or another about this election."

CAFARDI IS CORRECT when he says pro-lifers have utterly lost the abortion battle in this country. Pro-lifers have lost because -- either unable or unwilling to do the dirty work of impacting the culture for the cause of life -- they put all of their eggs (and cultural capital) in the Republicans' basket.

And 30 years later, abortion has been eliminated to the point where it's a wonder doctors aren't shooting healthy, full-term babies as they pop out of the womb. As a matter of fact, the "culture of life" has so triumphed -- thanks to the loving and savvy action of Catholic pro-lifers all over the United States -- that parents and guardians in Nebraska now are using a recently-enacted "safe haven" law to dump their unruly teen-agers in hospital emergency rooms.

That's not necessarily reason to vote for Obama, but it is reason not to judge a man, or his conscience, because his erstwhile compatriots' utter ineffectiveness in championing life has led him to a radically different political conclusion.

NOW, WHAT ABOUT John McCain's support for war, war and more war, more tax cuts for the rich and embryonic stem-cell research? Is anybody being forced off the Steubenville board for endorsing a candidate who supports, in order, Mass Death, Avarice and Homicide?

And what about supporting a candidate who sends out his "Joe Six-Pack" running mate, Sarah Palin, to demonize the opposition and work crowds up into this kind of hateful, racist frenzy, as noted by Dana Milbank of The Washington Post?

Barack Obama, she told 8,000 fans at a rally here Monday afternoon, "launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist!" This followed her earlier accusation that the Democrat pals around with terrorists. "This is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America," she told the Clearwater crowd. "I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country." The crowd replied with boos.

McCain had said that racially explosive attacks related to Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are off limits. But Palin told New York Times columnist Bill Kristol in an interview published Monday: "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more."

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

(snip)

The reception had been better in Clearwater, where Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Palin also told those gathered that Obama doesn't like American soldiers. "He said that our troops in Afghanistan are just, quote, 'air-raiding villages and killing civilians,' " she said, drawing boos from a crowd that had not been told Obama was actually appealing for more troops in Afghanistan.

"See, John McCain is a different kind of man: He believes in our troops," she said.

EXCOMMUNICATE the politically incorrect board member, and turn a blind eye to folks who'd kill Obama and sling racial slurs at TV sound men. Turn a blind eye toward those who organize the lynch mob, egg on the devil within then remain silent as the hate approaches critical mass.

Catholics should remember one thing from history: You might think it's better to hitch your wagon to Generalissimo Francisco Franco to defeat the lefties, but that choice comes at a price. And with its own set of pathologies.

The devil always gets his due.