Generally Significant Happenings

Keep an eye out for news regarding the "Protect Life Act" introduced by Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) Wednesday, Feb 9 especially. On Wednesday, there will be a hearing on the bill. This bill does two extremely important things for the pro-life cause. The first, to remove all federal funding of abortion from the new health care law. The second, to provide a conscience clause for all workers in the health care field, protecting them from having to perform or refer for abortions. See here for information on how to tell the Catholic Health Association to support the bill.

Pro-lifers in Ohio are introducing the "Heartbeat Bill," which would extend legal protection to all humans after a heartbeat can be detected (18-24 days into development). Kellie Copeland, NARAL's executive director, had this to say about the bill, "This legislation is launching a full-scale attack on women’s reproductive rights in this state instead of fixing the economy."  A little tweaking to reveal the real message, and we get Copeland's complaint, 'This legislation is launching an aggressive attack on women's rights to kill their babies which, if passed, will drastically reduce my paycheck. We need to focus on making more jobs, preferably in the abortion industry where I and my colleagues can profit from the desperation of pregnant women!" If only Copeland knew what a full-scale attack on prenatal homicide looked like... See Tom Crowe's response at CatholicVote here.


After a few tumultuous days wherein the pro-life community questioned the CDC under the Obama Administration for their reported decision to stop releasing annual abortion statistics beginning in 2010. Erick Erickson at RedState began raising questions when he noticed that the report normally posted in November was M.I.A. on the CDC's website. He states, "While not comprehensive, the CDC report provided the best single estimate of abortions in the US, as well as providing detailed breakdowns: the age of the baby at the time of abortion, age of the mother, number of abortions the mother had previous to the current one, etc. People on both sides of the abortion debate have cited these statistics to make their points."

Erickson describes his communications with the CDC,

After several attempts, we finally received confirmation from Rhonda Smith at the CDC’s press office in Atlanta that the report has been buried indefinitely; the CDC “will not have stats available at any time in the near future” and there “are no plans for them to come out any time soon.” This call took place on Jan. 27th, and we asked Ms. Smith for a reason that the report wouldn’t be issued anymore. She promised to check around and find out if there was any reason given and get back to us – as of the date of this posting [02/03/11], we have received no further communication from her office.

When RedState, Steven Ertelt, Jill Stanek, and others picked up the story, the CDC began to respond. Steven Ertelt of LifeNews.com explains,

Today, Tom Skinner, the Senior Public Affairs Officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told LifeNews.com that he anticipates publishing the abortion totals later this month and that delays have been a result of trouble gathering information — not pressure from Obama officials.
“Due to delays in collecting some of the population data needed to complete the MMWR Abortion Surveillance Summary, the report did not come out in November as it usually does,” he told LifeNews.com. “But it is tentatively scheduled for publication on February 24 and will be posted to the CDC website around noon on that day.”