Down the Hatch: Senate Committee Torpedoes Pro-Life Healthcare Amendments
By Peter J. SMith of LifeSiteNews.com

     On September 30th the Senate Finance Committee killed two key pro-life amendments designed to prevent government-subsidies of abortion and guaranteeing conscience protections for healthcare providers in the healthcare reform bill.
    Senator Orrin Hatch (Rep.-Utah) proposed to amend the America’s Health Future Act of 2009 under consideration by the Finance Committee led by Chairman Max Baucus (Dem.-Montana). Hatch’s amendments would have codified current conscience protections for healthcare providers with moral objections to abortion and also made permanent the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from paying for abortions. Hatch did however propose that women could purchase additional coverage for abortions through ‘riders’ that would not be subsidized by the government.
    Both of Hatch’s amendments were rejected by the Committee by votes of 13 to 10. In both amendments, Senator Kent Conrad (Dem.-North Dakota) joined committee Republicans in support of the measures, while pro-abortion Senator Olympia Snowe (Rep.-Maine) joined Baucus’ committee Democrats to vote against the amendments.

Defeated Amendments
    The following was the language of Hatch’s Amendment #C14 dealing with funding of abortions:
    “No funds authorized or appropriated under this Mark may be used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion, except in the case where a woman suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that would, as certified by a physician, place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself, or unless the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.
    Nothing in this amendment would preclude an insurance issuer from offering a separate, supplemental policy to cover additional abortions. Such a supplemental policy would be funded solely by supplemental premiums paid for by individuals choosing to purchase the policy.”

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Missouri Group Launches Campaign for Personhood Rights of Pre-Born Babies
By Jim Day

    On September 17th, pro-life Missourians submitted a proposed constitutional amendment to the Missouri Secretary of State to bring the protection of the Missouri Constitution to our most defenseless citizens - pre-born children.
    The amendment, which is known as the Personhood Amendment, will define all human beings as equal persons under the law from the very beginning of their biological development – which is conception.
    Led by local pro-lifers, Gregory Thompson and Pastor Mark Kiser the Missouri Personhood Amendment joins Florida, Montana, Colorado, and Mississippi, which started Personhood efforts earlier this year. “No human being in the state of Missouri should ever be considered property,” stated Gregory Thompson of Personhood Missouri. “Right now, the child in the womb has no rights. The Personhood Amendment will simply ensure that our laws recognize what we already know: a person’s a person no matter how small.”
    “Personhood USA is proud to stand with those in Missouri as they work to have all humans protected by love and by law,” added Keith Mason of Personhood USA.

So, Who or What is Personhood USA?
    Personhood USA is a grassroots Christian organization founded to establish personhood efforts across America to create protection for every child by love and by law. The organization is committed to assisting and supporting personhood legislation and constitutional amendments and building local pro-life organizations through raising awareness of the personhood of the pre-born. When the term “Person” is granted to a human being, it refers to the presence of a particular set of characteristics that grant that individual certain rights such as the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In other words, to be a person is to be protected by a series of God given and constitutionally protected rights. This terrifies the pro-abortion camp!
    Pro-abortion forces know that if we clearly define the pre-born baby as a person then they will have the same right to life as all Americans do! This amendment has the promise of plugging the “Blackmun Hole,” a startling admission that if personhood could be established for the pre-born, the arguments in Roe v. Wade would collapse.
    Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in the majority opinion for Roe v. Wade in 1973:
    “The appellee and certain amici [pro-lifers] argue that the fetus is a ‘person’ within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.”

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