Why do some want to forfeit rights in the false name of abortion as "healthcare"?

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed yesterday to hear the challenge by the Christian-owned Hobby Lobby stores against the HHS birth control mandate, which requires all employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception, abortifacient drugs and sterilizations. 

Hobby Lobby's employee health insurance currently does offer 16 of the 20 FDA-approved contraceptions required by Obamacare. They simply object to the remaining ones that cause abortions, because abortion violates their deeply held religious beliefs.

Not surprisingly, the hysterical feminists and their male counterpart supporters are in a self-righteous, Sandra Fluke-like frenzy over Hobby Lobby's audacious "attempt to impose its religious beliefs" on women by "denying them access" to birth control - which they wrongly refer to as "women's healthcare."

First of all, Hobby Lobby - specifically its founder, David Green, is not forcing any religious beliefs on anyone. If Hobby Lobby were to say any employee working for them was not allowed to use contraception as a condition of employment, the argument may have a bit more merit. But even then, not really, for the simple fact that nobody is forced to work at Hobby Lobby.

Second, preventing or terminating a pregnancy is not healthcare. Maternity is a valid health issue to the extent of "well-care" pre-natal visits, delivery, and the like. I don't know of any company that objects to coverage of maternity for those to whom it applies (although, under Obamacare, plenty of us object to being forced to carry it, including men, who do not need it). But contraception or abortifacients have more to do with the woman's decision on whether to pursue or terminate pregnancy. That is simply not healthcare (not to mention the fact that there are actually many health dangers that come with contraception use and abortion).

Other Hobby Lobby critics argue that a corporation is not a person, and therefore has no constitutional rights. I marvel at these people's grasp of reality as I try to imagine a company coming into existence and functioning without individual people to make it all happen - people who, in this case, are individuals with guaranteed rights as American citizens.

But reason and logic are non-existent to the group of frantic people who define women solely by their reproductive systems and literally freak out at the notion that a woman may have to make her reproductive choices on her own -- without the forced complicity of her employer.

It could be almost humorous to reflect on all the times we hear pro-abortion supporters tell the government to keep its hands off women's bodies and its noses out of their bedrooms, while these same people want employers to become directly involved against their will in these supposedly private aspects of women's lives. The problem is, there is nothing funny about what is happening here.

Indeed, it's a gravely serious matter that our government, through the HHS mandate, is throwing out our constitutional right to freedom of religion - including the free expression thereof - and is replacing it with a restricted parameter of how we can live our religious beliefs. Should the government get its way, we will be free to go to church (for now) and read the Bible in the privacy of our own homes (for now), but will need to check all our beliefs at the door upon entering the public square.

To all those who think an individual should be forced to choose between the law and his faith in the false name of "women's healthcare", I simply ask, what makes a woman's desire to use contraception or abortifacients -- which she is free to access on her own -- more important than any citizen's constitutional right not to partake in these actions on religious grounds? Why should these women's beliefs be more important than anyone else's? 

There's a dangerous precedent being set here by our government, one that could be used against all of us depending on which ideology is in power. So with that, I leave the Hobby Lobby critics with this age-old caveat: Be careful what you wish for. Stifled freedoms like the one you're demanding to stifle could just as easily be used against you should someone else be in power who doesn't think like you. For your own sake, you should pray that Hobby Lobby wins its case, and then you should thank them for fighting on your behalf to keep the constitutional rights you'd be sorry to lose - whether you realize it now or not.

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Obama's healthcare trick is a flagrant violation of law

By delaying the individual health insurance mandate for one year, President Obama made a desperate ploy yesterday to try to save the Democrats in next year’s mid-term elections. What he did not do was anything that will help the millions of people facing the loss of their health plans (myself included). He merely punted the ball to land in the same dangerous field a year from now after the elections are over.

He did say something interesting yesterday, however, when he said, “I didn’t realize how difficult it was to buy healthcare.”  The man is  52 years old. He is just now learning this? More importantly, what makes a man who has obviously never bought health insurance for himself think he can force it on 350 million Americans?

Remember how President George H.W. Bush was excoriated for not being familiar with price scanners at a grocery market? But Obama’s worshipers are just fine with the fact that he has never even partaken in the very part of the economy that he is trying to overtake.

But most disturbing is the fact that Obama's supporters are also apparently fine with the fact that Obama is flagrantly breaking the law, because he is absolutely not authorized to change the healthcare law willy nilly. While his supporters admonish those of us against the law to “deal with it…it’s the law,” they have no problem when the president changes it at whim – which is completely unconstitutional to do. Of course, when facing a complete policy failure, Obama's standard tactic is to ignore the law.

Breitbart.com puts it this way: “Everyone should know from their high-school government classes that Article I of the Constitution gives Congress exclusive power to make federal laws, and Article II of the Constitution gives the American president the executive power to administer and enforce those laws. Article II then includes the language about how the president must faithfully execute those laws.”

Breitbart.com continues, “Obama’s announcement (today) is a flagrant and undeniable violation of his constitutional duty under the Take Care Clause. The provisions of Obamacare causing enormous trouble for insurance plans are mandatory, and only Congress can change those parts of the Affordable Care Act. Every day provides additional proof that Obamacare is a complete train wreck, but it is one regarding which only Congress can change the terms….” not Obama.

What Obama is doing should terrify all of us. Still, his blind followers will likely defend him to the end because he carries the political “D” after his name. But they would be wise to abandon this childish ground for support because this is not about Democrat vs. Republican, right vs. left. This is about the identity of America itself. Are we a nation of law, or have we devolved into an unsettling combination of banana republic/dictatorship? Under Obama, we’re rapidly heading for the latter, toward the completion of Obama's promise to "fundamentally transform America." 

Will Obama's sycophants ever wake up to realize this? I won’t hold my breath. Besides, I’m pretty sure my government-approved healthcare plan wouldn’t cover the consequences of doing so.

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Help support Senate bill to protect pain-capable unborn children

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has introduced the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (S. 1670) in the U.S. Senate. This bill would protect unborn children from abortion, nationwide, beginning at 20 weeks’ fetal age, based on scientific evidence that by this stage of development (if not earlier), the baby will experience excruciating pain when subjected to typical late abortion procedures. This is the most important single pro-life bill to be proposed in Congress since the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was enacted ten years ago. 

This new bill (S. 1670) is almost identical to (H.R. 1797, a bill that has already passed the U.S. House of Representatives.  Now, it’s time to demand that the U.S. Senate vote on this landmark legislation. 

Thirty-six (36) senators have already joined Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) as co-sponsors of the new legislation.  Please add your voice. Click here to find tools that make it easy for you to send e-mail messages to your two U.S. senators in just a couple of minutes.  You will be shown a suggested message, which you can modify or replace as you see fit. 

If your senators have already cosponsored S. 1670, thank them.  If they have not done so, urge them to sign on as cosponsors immediately.  In either case, please express your strong support for S. 1670 -- and ask them to urge Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.) to allow an early Senate vote on S. 1670.

To view an up-to-date list of all of the co-sponsors of S. 1670, arranged by state, click here.

To see a video of National Right to Life Senior Legislative Counsel Susan T. Muskett go toe-to-toe with two critics of the bill on MSNBC's "Hardball With Chris Matthews" (November 8), click here.

The forces that are opposed to legal protections for unborn children have financial resources that are far greater than pro-life advocates.  Already, the radical pro-abortion group "NARAL Pro-Choice America" is running a TV ad against S. 1670.  Please take a moment to add your support for this bill.

Source: National Right to Life

Where's the left's outrage on recent murders of two young black people in Michigan?

Earlier this week we learned of the tragic death of Tiane Brown, a young mother of three in the process of getting her law degree at Wayne State University before she was brutally murdered by a gunshot to the head.

On the morning of Oct. 18, 20 year-old Eastern Michigan student and football player, Demarius Reed, was gunned down in front of Ypsilanti’s University Green Apartments. Police say robbery is a possible motive in the incident and the investigation remains open.

Both these young people had very promising futures and reputations for being good, positive role models. My prayers and heart go out to their families and all who are grieving for them.

But what I can't help notice is the lack of 24/7 press coverage either of these murders is getting. It makes you wonder where the media's priorities are and what constitutes a prominent story. 

When Trayvon Martin was killed in a scuffle with neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, it was all we heard about for months. The reason for that, of course, is because Zimmerman, who ended up firing the fatal shot on Martin, wasn't black. In their desperate attempt to sensationalize the case, media talking heads were forced to label Zimmerman a "white Hispanic", because "regular" Hispanics are apparently too much a minority themselves to ever be guilty of the race-driven crimes against black people that the media want us to believe are commonplace.

Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton and all the other race-baiters were on the scene, fanning the flames of the racism accusations. President Obama himself wasted no time in weighing in on the case, emotionally telling the American people how closely he could relate to the systemic racism that leads to things like the Trayvon death. He even likened Trayvon to his own son - if he had one. 

But when it comes to Brown and Reed, I ask, where are the celebrities wearing hoodies? Where is CBS, ABC and NBC with their righteous denouncing of violence? Couldn't they generate even half the emotion for Brown and Reed that they did for the less than angelic Trayvon Martin?

Other stories in the news have also caught Obama's attention. When Texas state Senator Wendy Davis launched a lengthy filibuster recently to protest safety regulations and restrictions on abortion clinics, Obama took time out of his trip to Africa to contact her with showers of praise.

When Sandra Fluke announced to the country that she believed we the citizens should pay for her contraception so she could have sex as she pleases without "consequence", Obama heralded her a hero and the Democrats even made her their keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention last year.

But when hard working, young black people are gunned down in the prime of their very promising lives, Obama doesn't see it worthy to even offer a phone call of consolation to their devastated families. Of course, Obama cannot possibly contact the family of every murder victim in America, but perhaps if these recent victims' killers were white, he would. And the Jessie's and Al's of the world would follow suit, decrying racism on every news outlet that would host them.

Until then, though, they will of course remain silent, which only highlights how the contrast between what the leftists consider attention-worthy, and what barely evokes a perfunctory shrug, is very telling of where their real priorities lie.

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