The House just voted 220-215 to approve health care legislation that would create a public health insurance option and require employers to offer health insurance.

Before the final vote, the House also voted 240-194 to bar federal funding of abortion in the proposed government-run health care plan.

Sixty-four Democrats voted in favor of the amendment led by Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), while Republican Rep. John Shadegg voted present in an effort to derail the bill. Here's the full description of the Stupak amendment.

The amendment prohibits federal funds for abortion services in the public option. It also prohibits individuals who receive affordability credits from purchasing a plan that provides elective abortions. However, it allows individuals, both who receive affordability credits and who do not, to separately purchase with their own funds plans that cover elective abortions. It also clarifies that private plans may still offer elective abortions.

Here's analysis from the Associated Press:

Under the Stupak amendment, people who do not receive federal insurance subsidies could buy private insurance plans in the exchange that include abortion coverage. People who receive federal subsidies could buy separate policies covering only abortions if they use only their own money to do it.

Companies selling insurance policies covering abortions would be required to offer identical policies without the abortion coverage.

...A health overhaul bill pending in the Senate also bars federal funding for abortion, but the language is less stringent. Discrepancies between the House and Senate measures would have to be reconciled before any final bill is passed.

CT reported earlier on how abortion and health care had split Democrats, and The New York Times reported that Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to deal with another fight before the final vote.

With just hours to go before the start on Saturday morning of historic floor debate over the health care bill, leading Democratic members of the Pro-Choice Caucus emerged from Ms. Pelosi’s office unable to contain their fury. Ms. Pelosi, unwilling to delay a vote on the larger bill, had decided that Democrats who oppose abortion simply had too many votes on their side; for the moment, at least, the liberals who favor abortion rights had lost.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released a statement praising the Stupak amendment but said that the health care legislation is "seriously flawed."

"The Speaker's bill still allows rationing of health care for seniors, raises health costs for families, mandates that families purchase under threat of fines and penalties, encourages counseling for assisted suicide in some states, does not offer broad conscience protections for health care workers and seeks to insert the federal government into all aspects of citizen's lives."

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at November 7, 2009 | Comments (2)

An unstamped letter from former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop caused a security scare when Capitol Police shut down Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s for 45 minutes office yesterday.

Koop's letter, addressed to Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, protested federal funding of abortion in health care legislation.

"More specifically, I am troubled about the possibility of federal dollars being used to pay for elective abortions and Americans being forced to subsidize them," Koop wrote. "I firmly believe that strong protections must be included in this legislation so that health care providers are not forced to participate in abortions against their will."

Roll Call reports that the letter was stampless with "C. Everett Koop" written in the upper-left corner, and staffers reported it as a suspicious package to the police.

Reached at his home Wednesday, Koop confirmed that he wrote a few “beautifully typed” pages on his views of the health care legislation. The fact that it caused a Capitol Hill scare is “nonsense,” he said.

“I wasn’t aware that sending a hand-delivered letter was an offense,” he said, later adding: “I did it over a weekend. I don’t have a lot of secretarial help and I’m 93.”

Koop wrote in his letter that a Hyde-like amendment, which bars most federal funding for abortion, should be included in any health care bill.

"I believe that including this legislative language is necessary to ensure the elective abortions are not financed either directly through a public plan or indirectly through federal subsidies provided to purchase health insurance through state exchanges," he wrote. "I also find it troubling that the legislation requires all state exchanges to offer at least one health plan that includes abortion coverage - no other federal health plan has that specific requirement today."

Koop, now a professor at Dartmouth Medical School, was Reagan administration's surgeon general from January 1982 to October 1989 and is considered influential in moving evangelicals into the pro-life camp.

(h/t Kathryn Jean Lopez)

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at November 5, 2009 | Comments (10)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to unveil a health care plan Thursday morning that could be up for a vote on the House floor next week.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Michigan) said Speaker Pelosi is not pleased with his effort to remove abortion from being funded through healthcare reform. "I'm comfortable with where I'm at," he said on CSPAN. "This is who I am. It's reflective of my district. If it costs me my seat, so be it."

Christianity Today posted an article last week that outlined how the issue is dividing Democrats. Focus on the Family Action is spending $400,000 to fight President Obama's health care proposals, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Update: Stupak says in a video released today by the Heritage Foundation blog that he would probably still vote for the health care at the end of the day.

“I offered an amendment that says no public funding for abortion; that’s been the law of the land for many many decades, and we lose that vote. Let’s say we lose that vote–we need 218 to win–let’s say we get 217, and we lose. Would I vote against health care? If I had a chance to vote my conscience on it, I probably would not. I probably would still vote for the health care bill at the end of the day.”

A man in the audience voiced his concern before Stupak defended his position again.

"If everything I want [is] in the final bill, I like everything in the bill except you have public funding for abortion, and we had a chance to run our amendment and we lost. OK, I voted my conscience, stayed true to my principles, stayed true to the beliefs of this district, could I vote for healthcare? Yes I still could."

In other news:

--President Obama signed the hate crimes legislation "to help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray, or who they are."

-- Former President Bush Former President George W. Bush mentioned his faith when spoke to about 11,000 people at a "Get Motivated" business seminar Monday.

"I don't see how you can be president without relying on the Almighty. Now when I was 21, I wouldn't have told you that, but at age 63, I can tell you that one of the most amazing surprises of the presidency was the fact that people's prayers affected me. I can't prove it to you. But I can tell you some days were great, some days not so great. But every day was joyous."

-- A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll suggests that 71 percent of Americans believe 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is not qualified to be president, with 29 percent saying she has the credentials. Palin was paid $1.25 million while governor in advance of her upcoming memoir. According to the Anchorage Daily News, Palin received $1,664 worth of airfare from Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse to deliver food aid to western Alaska villages last spring.

--A judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration's regulations for embryonic stem-cell research funding. Nightlight Christian Adoptions contended in a lawsuit that the guidelines will decrease the number of human embryos available for adoption, which U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said is speculative.

--Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the Obama administration's opposition to anti-defamation policies because they would limit free speech. Clinton made her remarks while releasing the State Department's annual report on international religious freedom.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at October 28, 2009 | Comments (5)

WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats framed their health care and climate bills with moral appeals and complained about Republican roadblocks during a roundtable discussion with reporters Wednesday.

"I want to get this off my chest," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is continuing to head up work on a health care plan this week. "We're trying to move forward to do something to take care of Medicaid. There are dozens of things they've held us up on and they're doing that because they're betting on our failure."

Reid was joined by senators including Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Ben Cardin (Maryland) and Bob Casey (Penn.).

Failure to reform health care will create a heavier burden for the faith community to care for the poor, sick and elderly, said Sen. Ben Cardin.

"The faith community is being called upon to provide more resources and do more things that should be in our system collectively," Cardin said.

If the religious community is ever going to come together in the area of public policy, it should be over the concerns of health care and climate change, said Barbara Boxer. She said she's been "thrilled" with support from the religious community for her climate change bill introduced with Sen. John Kerry earlier this month. The bill would require emissions be reduced to 97 percent of 2005 levels by 2012, 80 percent by 2010 and 17 percent by 2050.

Boxer, who is chairman of the Senate environment committee, said she also hopes for support from the religious community in December when she and other leaders meet in Copenhagen to discuss climate change.

She said churches, synagogues, and mosques should be the ones highlighting the moral responsibility to care for the health of people and the planet.

"Let's face it, God is very popular," she said. "So it's important people hear this in their daily lives."

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at October 22, 2009 | Comments (6)

Americans appear nearly divided over the health care proposals before Congress, according to a September 2009 Pew Research Center poll. Forty-two percent of Americans favor the proposals before Congress while 44 percent who oppose them.

A Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life analysis reports that just 18 percent of white evangelicals favor the bills before Congress to reform health care.

A March 2009 survey by the Pew Research Center polling found 48 percent of white evangelicals favored a government guarantee of health insurance for all citizens, even if it would mean raising taxes. The survey found that 55 percent of Catholics, 56 percent of mainline Protestants, and 72 percent of religiously unaffiliated said the same thing.

The Pew Forum compares two coalitions of religious groups have staked out opposing positions on the issue: the Faith for Health, a progressive group that backs President Barack Obama, and the Freedom Federation, a conservative group that strongly opposes what it calls “the federalization of the health care industry.”

What do you think? Do you find hope in any of the health care bills before Congress?

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at October 5, 2009 | Comments (6)

President Obama pitched government-funded health care as a “a core ethical and moral obligation” in a conference call open to the public tonight, saying that some people are "bearing false witness."

"This notion that we are somehow setting up death panels that would decide on whether elderly people get to live or die. That is just an extraordinary lie," he said. "You’ve heard that this is all going to mean government funding of abortion. Not true."

Obama also said his opponents have claimed that elderly Americans that a new health insurance system could jeopardize Medicare.

"Many of you have older members of your congregations. They’re all now scared to death that someone is talking about cutting Medicare benefits," he said. "That is again simply not true."

Faith in Public Life estimated that 140,000 people participated in the call.

"These are all fabrications that have been put out there in order to discourage people from meeting what I consider to be a core ethical and moral obligation," Obama said. "And that is that we look out for one another. That I am my brother’s keeper and my sister’s keeper."

Sojourners President Jim Wallis, Florida megachurch pastor Joel Hunter, and Director of the Domestic Policy Council Melody Barnes also spoke.

Earlier today, Family Research Council launched a new TV ad in five states that claims Obama’s health care plan will lead to publicly funded abortions.

President of FRC Tony Perkins released a statement responding to Obama's call.

"This evening, President Obama stated that abortion funding in health care reform is a 'distraction,'" he said. "If that is the case - then why not end this so-called 'distraction' and amend the bill to explicitly prohibit abortion funding and coverage with his health care plan?"

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at August 19, 2009 | Comments (96)

President Obama will address health care concerns during a public call-in with religious leaders tomorrow at 5 p.m. Eastern, as reported last week.

The press release states that a "high-level administration official" will answer questions, but a Faith in Public Life spokeswoman declined to give more details pending confirmation.

The call will be open to the public, streamed live, and include various religious leaders, including Florida megachurch pastor Joel Hunter, Kansas megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton, and Sojourners President Jim Wallis.

To listen to “40 Minutes for Health Reform,” log on to www.faithforhealth.org at 5 p.m. Eastern or call 347-996-5501.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at August 18, 2009 | Comments (9)

President Obama has accepted an invitation to speak during a public call-in about health care reform on August 19. The call will be open to the public, streamed live, and include a coalition of religious groups ranging from Sojourners to Faith in Public Life to the National Baptist Convention. More details will be released this afternoon.

The coalition released the “40 Days for Health Reform” initiative this morning, including a national TV ad featuring Christians arguing for healthcare reform, prayer events, meetings with members of Congress, and a nationwide health care sermon weekend on August 28-30.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at August 10, 2009 | Comments (19)

If you tried to log on to the Stop the Abortion Mandate webcast Thursday night, your connection may have timed out like mine did. According to moderator David Bereit 36,187 people were all trying to stream the live event at the same time.

Recent media coverage of the debate about abortion and health care reform may have heighted interest in the webcast. (Christianity Today has blogged about it here and here).

Pro-life leaders participating in the webcast included Kristen Day of Democrats for Life, James Dobson of Focus on the Family (with a pre-recorded message), Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, and Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), but not former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. His absence after originally being included in the list of participants was not explained, although he blogged against universal health care on the same day.

Webcast speakers focused on abortion. "What you probably haven't heard is that the health care bill being advanced by Democrats is the abortion industry's dream come true," said Dobson, who opened the presentation with his pre-recorded statement. He continued:

The health care bill will force taxpayers to fund a huge abortion industry bail-out, even though the majority of Americans oppose abortion. In addition, it will mandate that virtually every American will be coerced into a health plan that covers abortion, and it would require that health care providers that are opposed to abortion violate their own consciences by performing abortions at the risk of losing their own jobs. It will be a disaster for the sanctity of human life and an assault on the moral values of every American who is forced to support the killing of babies.

Pavone said the bill would be "the largest expansion of abortion since Roe vs. Wade" and said that the health care reform bill would "prop up" the "collapsing" abortion industry. Subsequently, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America and Tom Minnery, the senior vice president of Government and Public Policy at Focus on the Family, both spoke out against the use of "deceptive language" in the bill. Minnery said:

You'll recall that as a candidate, President Obama said he wanted to make abortion very rare. This proposal gives the lie, I'm sorry to say that, but it gives the lie to that statement. Obviously, we all know that what is … subsidized … will expand.

Day, speaking for Democrats for Life, struck a hopeful note by reminding listeners of the letter sent last month by 20 pro-life Democrats to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, informing her that they would not support abortion funding in the bill. Day said that she knew of several other members of the Democrat majority-led House who would have signed also, had they not missed the deadline. Day said, "I'm convinced we will pick up enough votes to make sure the health reform bill does not pass if the abortion amendment is not in there."

Although not mentioned in the webcast, Thursday provided another example of Democrats in the House working toward common ground in the abortion debate. Reps. Tim Ryan and Rosa DeLauro, who approach the issue from either side of the pro-choice/pro-life divide, proposed the Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act. The bill provides for an adoption campaign, along with tax incentives for adoption, and increased availability of ultrasound equipment. While groups such as Planned Parenthood and NARAL have signed on to the bill, some pro-life groups protest its funding for contraception and comprehensive sex education.

A 96 minute recording of the event and an "Action Guide" with suggestions for contacting senators and representatives is available at StoptheAbortionMandate.com.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at July 27, 2009 | Comments (13)

President Obama said the public should become less focused on whether abortion would be covered under federal healthcare in an interview with Katie Couric last night.

KATIE COURIC: Do you favor a government option that would cover abortions?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know-- the-- the-- the-- what I think is important, at this stage, is not trying to micromanage what benefits are covered. Because I think we're still trying to get a framework. And my main focus is making sure that people have the options of high quality care at the lowest possible price.

As you know, I'm pro choice. But I think we also have a tradition-- of, in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of-- you know, government funded health care. And, you know, my-- you know, rather than wade into that issue at this point-- I think that it's appropriate for us to figure out how to just deliver on the cost savings, and not get distracted by the abortion debate at this station.

(h/t Kathryn Jean Lopez)

Obama's hope that it won't remain a distraction might not happen. Dan Gilgoff has a piece on how the abortion question might turn off more moderate evangelicals.

"I wouldn't call it a litmus test, but this is a prototype moment for the possibility of finding common ground," says the Rev. Joel Hunter, a prominent evangelical who is on Obama's faith advisory council. "If there is a doubt in the pro-life community about public funding of abortion, that will sink the healthcare
bill."

"Moderate, pro-life evangelicals like me will be very unhappy if healthcare reform ends up becoming a vehicle for government subsidizing, or mandatory coverage, of abortion," adds David Gushee, a Christian ethics professor at Mercer University who has consulted with the Obama White House on other issues.

Politico's Ben Smith is also doing some coverage.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at July 22, 2009 | Comments (6)

Pro-life organizations are launching efforts to combat proposed health care reform that could fund abortions. The groups' concern revolves around the definition of the "essential benefits" that would be mandated for all insurers to cover under any new plan.

The New York Times reported last weekend that an Obama administration official did not rule out the possibility that abortion could be covered. Peter R. Orszag, the White House budget director, said: "I am not prepared to say explicitly that right now. It's obviously a controversial issue, and it's one of the questions that is playing out in this debate."

Pro-life groups are concerned that abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood will succeed in defining abortion as an element of "women's basic health care." Several leaders will participate in "Stop the Abortion Mandate" webcast at 9 p.m. Eastern on Thursday. The speakers will include Mike Huckabee, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Kristen Day of Democrats for Life, James Dobson of Focus on the Family, and Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC).

Newsweek reports that the abortion issue could be the true "stumbling block" to the health care reform plan and extend negotiations past the summer.

… the two versions of a reform bill currently on the table—one from the House and another from the Senate's Health Committee—do not list covered benefits, and that could make it easier to finesse the abortion issue. They leave coverage decisions up to an independent commission or the Department of Health and Human Services.

According to the NRLC, if the bill being discussed by the House now does not include language that explicitly prevents the federal funding of abortion services, "those procedures will be mandated as essential services." On the other side, Planned Parenthood has launched its own campaign, asking people to contact their congressmen about making reproductive health care a priority.

Republicans tried unsuccessfully to restrict abortion coverage in House committees last week. Twenty House Democrats told House Democratic leaders stating they "cannot support any health care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan."

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at July 21, 2009 | Comments (7)

Five members of President Obama's faith-based advisory council have joined the debate over his plan to rescind recent conscience protections for healthcare workers, but could not agree whether those rules should remain intact or be overturned.

Obama's Department of Health and Human Services has set a Thursday deadline for comments to be submitted on whether regulations former President Bush enacted in December should be overturned, as Obama plans to do.

The letter, signed by eight religious leaders and scholars, said upfront that some signers would urge HHS to retain the Bush regulations, while others would urge the Department to rescind them.

But either way, the letter submitted by Nathan Diament from the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, said longstanding federal protections from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are inadequate.

"The decision to protect conscience concerns about deeply divisive healthcare procedures was made over a period of decades by the Congress, and nothing the Department did or does can rescind that decision," the letter said. "Statutes trump regulations, just as the Constitution
trumps statutes."

Signers include Diament and four other members of Obama's advisory panel for the revamped Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships: Sojourners president Jim Wallis; Florida megachurch pastor Joel Hunter; Wake Forest University scholar Melissa Rogers; and Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

The Bush administration regulations protect an individual's or institution's rights to refuse a service, such as abortion or distribution of contraceptives, if doing so violates religious or moral beliefs.

Critics, however, say Title VII of the landmark Civil Rights Act already protects against workplace discrimination. The religious leaders' letter said Title VII does not adequately address healthcare conscience issues.

"For providers who believe life begins at conception, whether or not Plan B technically acts as an (abortion-inducing drug) changes little about the need to accommodate the pharmacist with a conscientious objection to dispensing Plan B," the letter said. "As the law does in other contexts, we should rely on the refusing party to decide where his or her conscience concerns begin and end."

The writers hold Obama to a campaign pledge in which he said he would support legislation to strengthen Title VII.

"A strengthened Title VII, with its `undue hardship' `reasonable accommodation' balancing approach is, in our view, an excellent means of addressing healthcare conscience issues beyond the scope" of the Bush-era regulations, the letter said.

Others who joined the letter include the Rev. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist's Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission; anti-abortion Catholic scholar Douglas Kmiec; and Robert Fretwell-Wilson, a law professor at Washington & Lee University.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 8, 2009 | Comments (1)

Food pantries are struggling. Food prices are up, donations are down, and need is growing.

(Examples: Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Oregon, North Carolina, Florida, to name a few.)

Charity navigators lists the best food pantries by location and rating.

(Originally posted at Steve Waldman's blog at Beliefnet.)

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at November 24, 2008 | Comments (0)