Obama Selects Ex-Planned Parenthood Board Member for Key Policy Post

From http://lifenews.com/nat4607.html

Obama Selects Ex-Planned Parenthood Board Member for Key Policy Post
by Steven Ertelt

LifeNews.com Editor
November 24, 2008
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Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Continuing his quest to put abortion advocates in key places where they could advance a radical pro-abortion agenda, Barack Obama has named a former Planned Parenthood staff as one of his top domestic advisors. Obama named Melody Barnes as his director of the Domestic Policy Council.
Barnes, who served in the upper echelons of the Obama campaign, is no stranger to promoting abortion.

She served on the board of directors of Emily's List, a group that has spent nearly $250 million promoting pro-abortion candidates.
Barnes also served a stint as a member of the board of directors of Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion business that brought in over $1 billion in income the last fiscal year.
The lawyer was also a chief counsel to pro-abortion Sen. Ted Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee where pro-life advocates have fought massive battles on Supreme Court nominees.
Barnes made her pro-abortion bona fides clear in a 2005 article posted on the Center for American Progress web site.
"It is unacceptable to speak timidly about the right embodied in Roe v. Wade," she wrote. "Too much is at stake the lives and welfare of women, the well-being of their families, and of great importance a concept of liberty that includes women as equal."
Barnes joined Obama at the Monday press conference where he announced new domestic and economic policy advisors. Al;though she will mostly oversee economic issues, she will also work on health care and will touch on abortion themes.
Barnes will not need to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate since her position is part of the Executive Office of the President.
Her appointment is only the latest in a growing line of abortion advocates Obama has named to key policy positions that affect pro-life issues.
Obama's first personnel decision involved selecting pro-abortion Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois as his chief of staff.
Earlier this month, Obama picked pro-abortion former Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota as his Health and Human Services Secretary.
As the health secretary, Daschle will likely play a role in shaping Obama's health care plan, which has come under fire for possibly including abortion coverage or mandating that hospitals or insurance companies cover abortions.


Daschle would also be in a key position to rescind the protections the Bush administration is expected to put in place any day now for pro-life doctors and medical centers
Later, he named prominent pro-abortion attorney Dawn Johnsen to serve as a member of his Department of Justice Review Team. Johnsen was the Legal Director for NARAL from 1988-1993.He also selected Jonathan Moreno, a professor of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, to head up bioethics efforts. Naming Moreno makes it clear Obama will likely overturn the limits President Bush put in place on making sure taxpayers aren't forced to pay for embryonic stem cell research.

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