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You'll want to know about some pro-life bills
being introduced on Capitol Hill and a letter
the pro-life leaders sent to the
Speaker of the House.
This is the CitizenLink Report. Hi, I'm Stuart Shepard
along with Carrie Gordon Earll
who follows the life issue for Focus on the Family.
Hi, Carrie.
Hi, Stuart.
You know when there's a big story like the
partial government shutdown it tends to clog
up all the news channels -- it's hard to find
out about what else is going on Capitol Hill.
You've been keeping an eye on three bills
-- we want to talk about each one real quickly.
First over in the senate one called the Children
in Families First (S. 1530) What's it about?
Well Stuart many of us have heard stories
of families that wanted to adopt internationally
and not only do they have to go through red
tape in the foreign country they're adopting
from they often hit read tape here in the
United States as well. So this is a measure
introduced in the Senate -- it has bipartisan
support. The primary sponsor is Mary Landrieu
of Louisiana and it would reallocate responsibility
for international adoption within the State
Department. It would also streamline and cut
through some of that red tape for families
to make it easier for them to adopt. So it
really has the goal to help get kids into
forever families in the United States
so it has bi-partisan support.
And the second bill you're watching over in
the House is the Family Fairness and Opportunity
Tax Reform Act. (and I have to read it because
the name is so long.) Tell us about it.
Well it is an increased tax child credit and
is it Senator Mike Lee of Utah that is going
to be introducing that hasn't been dropped
yet. But this is part of a larger tax reform
package by Senator Lee and it would increase
per child for additional tax credit of $2,500
and that's in addition to the $1,000 per child
that is currently allocated. And the idea
here is that children are going to be the
tax payers of the future and they are expensive
to raise. They're the best investment but
most certainly families of children maybe
struggle a little bit more so this would give
them a little bit of cushion in the tax code.
And the final one we want to talk about today
is called the Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act (H.R. 3279)
That sounds intriguing?
Well it is and it's tied to the whole debate
over the federal health care program. It is
introduced in the house by Representative
Chris Smith of New Jersey and the idea here
is that in Obamacare there is a clause that
requires secrecy. The exchanges at the state
level, some of them do have an abortion premium
-- an abortion subsidy up to at least a dollar
a month. And the problem is when you sign
up for those you don't know that you've signed
up for a plan that has abortion in it until
you've signed it. It's kind of like what Nancy
Pelosi said "we'll know what's in the bill
once we pass it." Once you sign on the dotted
line you find out whether or not some of your
money is going to go to abortion. And that's
whether or not you are male, female, you're
20, you're 80 -- it doesn't matter. Everybody
is footing the bill for this. So this is a
bill that would require that disclosure to
be made before you sign and if there is abortion
in the plan for you to be told upfront what
the cost of that is so that you can make an
informed choice as a consumer.
And our perception here is that as you look
at what the administration has been doing
with the implementation of Obamacare that
they're working carefully to not look like
they're putting abortion into Obamacare but
to protect that space so they can definitely
bring it about.
Absolutely and that's what happened when this
was being negotiated, if you will, was there
was a clause put in that at least one or two
of the plans in a given state must be abortion
free or at least just follow the Hyde Amendment
which is rape, incest, life of the mother.
Now there have been some state that have said
we don't want any abortion funding period
and those are going to be in a different category.
But again this is basic disclosure for people.
This is a product that they have to buy or
their going to be fined and the least you
can do at this point is to say this is what
you're buying and what you're paying for.
Now I know we don't do particularly well at
looking into the future on these things but
what are the chances of these bills? We've
got a president and a senate majority leader
who are not particularly kind to pro-life
bills but they might be open to adoption bills.
What do you think?
I think the adoption bill in the senate because
it does have bi-partisan support is the most
likely to pass and again that is an issue
that is less polarizing that people can really
come together with. The other two: reforming
the tax code to put more money in the pockets
of tax payers who are raising children, that
is going to be a hard sell, especially in
the senate. And the house bill of course is
here we have again the Republicans -- the conservatives
in the house who are trying to draw a bold
line to say this is our problem with Obamacare
and we really wants this to be dealt with.
I've got a letter that a long list of pro-life
groups sent to the Speaker of the House,
John Boehner, it's kind of lengthy. I want to read
what's probably the paragraph that summarizes
what "it's" all about. It says "Under the
ACA, (the Affordable Care Act -- also known
as Obamacare) millions of Americans will be
unknowingly enrolled in the health care plans
that includes elective abortion coverage.
These plans will charge enrollees a minimum
of $1 per month -- an 'abortion surcharge'
-- that will go in to an abortion slush fund.
Regulations further contain a 'secrecy clause'
to conceal the existence of the 'abortion
surcharge' until the moment of enrollment.
This surcharge is only disclosed in the fine
print, without itemization in the monthly
premium, and is never disclosed again."
That sounds kind of sneaky.
Well it does and that's why this letter went
to Speaker Boehner was to ask him to include
in any must pass legislation that is tied
to government funding and the debt ceiling
to include a repeal of the abortion section
of Obamacare and also the HHS Mandate for
employers which we've talked about quite a
bit. You know these are the two major problems
with Obamacare. There are other problems as
well but the abortion funding and the HHS
Mandate. And we are at a place now that we're
in real time -- we're in real time -- we're
not just talking about what's in the future.
Americans are signing up for exchanges.
They are signing up for...
We'll they're trying to.
They're trying to that include abortion -- that
will be billing them for other people's abortions
and they may not know that. You know it's
estimated that anywhere from 70,000 to over
100,000 abortions will be at least partially
subsidized by the Obamacare program and by
an expansion in Medicaid and that arguably
is the largest abortion expansion since Roe
V. Wade in this country. The other with the
HHS Mandate, Stuart, people may not realize
if you a for-profit business and you have
a Christian or faith based conviction that
you don't want to provide coverage for contraceptives,
possible abortion causing drugs, those businesses
are being fined. They are accruing fines today.
Unless they have gone to court and are part
of a lawsuit and have gotten a temporary judgment
to protect them from those fines...
It's either betray your faith or pay a fine.
It is and people are living in real time on
these issues right now and that's why I think
it's so critical. Non-profits only have until
the first of the year. January 1, 2014, non-profits
begin to be fined so these are some very serious
issues which is why this letter went up to the Hill.
 
And who would have guessed, I mean we've been
talking about it for many months, but I think
many people are a little surprised that this
implementation of a Federal Health Care law
is running head on into religious freedom.
We've got more than 70 companies, colleges,
non-profits of all kinds who are suing the
administration which is defending all of them
because it wants to keep
abortion in health care.
Well what we've seen here is that the whole
agenda of abortion, of so call reproductive
rights, of contraception, trumps religious
freedom and we've talked about that on this
program. If we all that to stand as the American
people, we have really allowed a foot in the
door that is going to impact many more people
in different ways that we can't even begin
to imagine yet. It is a very dangerous place
to go when we start tinkering with those first
freedoms in the constitution and most certainly
that's why people are alarmed about Obamacare.
That is why I would suspect the folks in the
House, especially in the Republican side are
drawing such a hard line on this because they
see where it could take the country economically,
morally, as well as our religious freedoms
and we don't want to be toying with that.
Very good. Carrie thanks for tracking all
this for us -- appreciate your insights.
You bet, thanks, Stuart.
Thank you for watching. We appreciate your
dropping by here each week to hear from us
on the issues that you care about. You may
always write to us at Mail@CitizenLink.com
We appreciate hearing your comments, your
questions, your criticisms. We do ready every
note that comes in but we can't always respond
to each one. We encourage you to pray for our
elected officials in Washington as they consider
these bills that we've talked about.
Help them to have the wisdom of Solomon as they
figure out what to do with the language
in these bills and to get them passed as they
move through the House and the Senate.
And remember to pray for the country overall.
Also remember to Stand Tall and Be Heard!
