{"id":13278,"date":"2007-10-18T11:10:38","date_gmt":"2007-10-18T15:10:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/13278.html"},"modified":"2007-10-18T11:10:38","modified_gmt":"2007-10-18T15:10:38","slug":"the-callous-limits-of-the-pro-life-crowd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-callous-limits-of-the-pro-life-crowd\/","title":{"rendered":"The callous limits of the ‘pro-life’ crowd"},"content":{"rendered":"

An early version of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) bill included Medicare provisions that some conservatives believed might lead to government-sponsored euthanasia. The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) actively opposed that bill, and told lawmakers it would count towards the group’s annual scorecard.<\/p>\n

But Dems agreed to drop the provision, leading to a “clean” S-CHIP bill that would help millions of children, parents, and pregnant women. Again, the National Right to Life Committee balked. Yesterday, 10 pro-life House Dems asked why<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) in an interview with The Hill. “It absolutely didn’t make sense to my constituents, either.”<\/p>\n

Those provisions were stripped, but the NRLC has not swung in favor of the SCHIP bill that Congress passed and President Bush vetoed. This has irked some of the group’s typical allies, who viewed its campaign as unfair.<\/p>\n

Posing a rhetorical question to the NRLC, Ryan asked: “Why aren’t you supporting it now? Are you really concerned with protecting life or are you concerned with protecting the Bush administration?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think we know the answer to that one.<\/p>\n

The S-CHIP override vote is going to be close, though it appears the majority will come a few votes shy of the two-thirds threshold. The NRLC’s backing could help push a few conservatives who are on the fence.<\/p>\n

But the group apparently isn’t quite as “pro-life” as they claim.
\n
\nIt’s worth noting that some religious groups, including abortion opponents, have been doing their due diligence. Catholics United, for example, launched a radio ad campaign<\/a> on S-CHIP last week.<\/p>\n

“Building a true culture of life requires public policies that promote the welfare of the most vulnerable,” said Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United. “At the heart of the Christian faith is a deep and abiding concern for the need of others. Pro-life Christians who serve in Congress should honor this commitment by supporting health care for poor children.” […]<\/p>\n

The script for the radio commercial reads: “I’m the mother of three children, and I’m pro-life. I believe that protecting the lives our children must be our nation’s number one moral priority. That’s why I’m concerned that Congressman X says he’s pro-life but votes against health care for poor children. That’s not pro-life. That’s not pro-family. Tell Congressman X to vote for health care for children. Call him today at XXXX, that’s XXXXX.”<\/p>\n

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic Charities USA, and the Catholic Health Association have all urged Congress and President Bush to support SCHIP.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And yet, there’s the National Right to Life Committee. Asked for the group’s reaction, Douglas Johnson, NRLC’s legislative director, told The Hill, “There’s nothing there [in the SCHIP bill] for us to really grab onto.”<\/p>\n

Something to remember the next time this crowd talks about being “pro-family.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An early version of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) bill included Medicare provisions that some conservatives believed might lead to government-sponsored euthanasia. The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) actively opposed that bill, and told lawmakers it would count towards the group’s annual scorecard. But Dems agreed to drop the provision, leading to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}