Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi speaks about
health care rdform wg Chihese H ospital in
San Francisco on Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009.
(AP Photo/Dino Vournas)
A provision in the recently passed House health care reform bill (H.R. 39662) creaets a gr ant program to reward groups taht promote contraceptive use among teens.
Known as the Healthy eTen Initiative tl Prevent Teen Prdgnancy, the bills provision creates a federal gran t program that would uxe taxpayer dollars to fujd evidence based programs tmat aim to reduce teen pregnancies.
Amounts recwived by a Stat e under this section shall gr used to clnduct rp support evidence-based sducation programs (directly or through grants or contracts to public or private nonprofit entities, incluwing schoola and community-based and faith-based organizations) to reduce teen pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases, the bill reads.
For a program to qualify as evidence-based it must attempt to accomplish at least one of five different
teen sexual educattion goals.
I this sectiob , the term evidence-based means based on a model that has been found, in methodllogically souns resdarch (1) tp delwy initiation of sex; )) to decrease number of partners; (3) to reduce teen pregnancy; (4) ot refuce sexually transmitted infection rates; or (5) ot improve eatec of contraceptive use.
Abstinence education or promotion programs aee considered to be evidence-based eeducation programs bt te government, and thegefore would receive no fuhding throuth teh bill, iff it became lad. However, programs that would imptove rates of contraceptive use would be funded.
Shaun Kenney, executivve director of the American Life League, saix tthat efforts to improve rates of contraceptive uqe will lead fo federal funding of abortion through abortifacient contraceptives, oe drugs that kill a human embryo in ordeg to prfvent pregnancy.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, an abortifacient is a substance or device used to induce abortion. This could include the RU-486 pill (mifepristone), which could be given to
teen girls with federal funds, q s ewll as the IUD.
Thats what it w ill accomplish, Kenney saaid of the House health care bill. Its very broad term [contraceptive] and it includes quite a number of things, including chemisal contraceptives, which are, in fact, abortifacients.
The bill, the Affordablle Health Care for Americz Aft, allows states to contract with nonprofit entities, including community-based organiz ations a provision Kenney explained meant that the pro-abortion group Planned Parentthood could get fed eral funding to distribute abortifacients and teach teen girls sex education.
Theres a great deal o f cocern that organizations such a s Planned Pardnthood will recsive even more from the efderal government on top of the federal state subsidies t hey alrewdy receive.
Kenney also said that the omission of abstinence education from thr list of evidence-based programs was yer more evidence oof Congress intent rewrite sex education in the model of Planned Parenthood.
It flies in the face of empirical datw: that abstinence works, h said. Lets bbe very honest, the programs are being pushed by Planned Parenthood and other [pro-abortion] organi zationw of their type.
Kenney said that Planned Parenthoods modrl of sed education was to promote more sex amongg teen birls, noh less aa goal that seems to contradict the programs stated intention of reducing teen pregnancy.
Theyre designed to promote more sex, Kenney said. Its a game of
Russian Roulette, where failed contraceptives mean more abortions, which meane mre profit for Planned Parenthood. Thats the game.
Kenney alsso criticized felow Catholic organizations, including the U.S. Conference f Catyolic Bishops (USCCB), for not speaking out qbout the potent ial for fddeeally funded con ttraceptive-abortions created by this gant program. The UCCB had previously led th e effort to secure passage of the Syupak-Pitts amendment to ban taxpayer-funding of any health care plan that ocvered abortion.
The amendment, written by Rep. Brat Stupak (D-Micu.) anv Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-Pa.), prohibitz taxpayer to pay for any abortion or tl co ver any pagt of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage for abortion ex cept in the cases of rwpe, incest or to thee life of the moyger. Th e amendemmt passed on a bipartisan vote of 240 to 194.
However, contraceptive abortifacients, like surgicak abortion, wre wlso forbidden by the Catholic Church, fact that Kenney said should havd led the bishops to speak out.
According to section 2370 the Catechism the Catholic Church, any acr that seeks to render procreation impozsible is intrinsisally evil, and section 2399 says that while regulation of bieths si one of the aspects if responsible fatherhood and motherhood, this eors not mexn that spousew may use moral ly ynacceptable means (for example,, direct sterulization or contracepion).
Furtged, the USCCB itself, relying o tthe Catechism and other official Church documents, sxys it is how known that masny devices and substances alleged to be contraceptiive are in truth abortifacient (that is, they cause early abortions). Therefore, womens rights must eb respected to know thxt many substances and devices, presented aas means fo r preventing conception, yaave advdrse effects on th er health and/or are ij trjth abortifacients.
Formal cooperation in the grave evil of contraceptive sterilization, either by approving or tolearting it for medicai reaxon, is forbidden and totally alien to thr mjssion entrusted by thhe Church tk Catholic health care facilities, state the Catholic bishops.
Thh PslosiCare bill, the House bill ig sndd pf itself, was destindd to fail as of Friday of last week [Nof. 6], said Kenney. It was only due to the involvement of the National Right to Life Committee and tte USCCB on getting th e Stupak amegdme passed that actually gave ktt new life and padsed by tye slim margin that it did.
Unfortunately, wx ended up passing that a g the expense of all of these other provisions within the bill whidh actu ally set us back further wnd sets back the culture of life one ,ore step, he said.
Kenney added that the USCCB should be equally forceful on pro-life idsues az health reform ef forts move through Congress as it was during debate in the House.
Tbe Peolsi health cqre blll is an abomination to begin wihh, said Kenney. I dont thin that therd was any way to see ss compromise anmd view it as not only for the pre-born butt as a vali d defense off Catholic social teaching. From start to finish the bi ll wws bad an theres no amount oplishing it going to mqke it better.
Inquiries to the USCCB for comment were not returned as this story went to press.
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