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From http://lifenews.com/nat4588.html
Barack Obama Picks Pro-Abortion Senator Tom Daschle as Health Secretary
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 19, 2008
The former Senate Majority Leader reportedly accepted Obama's offer according to two Democratic Party sources.
To become official, Daschle's confirmation requires an affirmative Senate vote.
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 projections the Bush administration is expected to put in place any day now for pro-life doctors and medical centers.
The Bush protections make sure medical facilities and medical personnel are not forced to be involved in abortions that violate their moral or religious views. The new HHS rules strengthen existing laws by providing for funding cuts for agencies or medical centers that violate them.
Daschle has a long pro-abortion voting record as a member of Congress and was defeated by current pro-life Sen. John Thune in part because of the abortion divide.
The last two years of Daschle's tenure depict the kind of pro-abortion voting record he maintained.
In March 2003, Daschle voted for a Senate resolution endorsing Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that allowed virtually unlimited abortions throughout pregnancy and ushered in an era of nearly 50 million abortions.
While Daschle voted for the national partial-birth abortion ban that the Supreme Court eventually upheld, he cast two votes on pro-abortion measures that would have weakened it to the point of being ineffective.
Daschle also supported making taxpayers fund abortions in a variety of circumstances, including funding groups that promote and perform abortions overseas and the performance of abortions at military base hospitals.
He also voted for an alternative to the Unborn Victims Bill, the measure that provides protection and justice for women and children like Laci and Conner Peterson who are victims of violence, that would have been far weaker.
The measure Daschle backed would deny that the baby had suffered any injuries or death in such an attack.
Daschle's record was so poor that the National Right to Life Committee gave him only a 27 percent pro-life voting record from 2003-2004, a 0 percent record in 2001-2002, an 11 percent record in 1999-2000, and a 20 percent record from 1997-1998.
Obama's first personnel decision involved selecting pro-abortion Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois as his chief of staff.
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From http://lifenews.com/int995.html
Obama Urged Not to Fund UNFPA After Chinese Woman Escapes Forced Abortion
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 19, 2008
They say the United Nations agency supports the family planning program that placed Arzigul Tursun in jeopardy in the first place.
As LifeNews.com reported Tuesday, Tursun was released from a hospital where she had been held captive awaiting a planned forced abortion. Chinese officials admitted the abortion would jeopardize her health and let her go.
Now leading pro-life advocates are pointing to the incident and the UNFPA's proven involvement in China's coercive one-child policy as a reason to continue de-funding the group as President Bush has done.
In total, Bush has revoked $240 million in taxpayer funding for the pro-abortion group since 2002, but Obama has pledged to renew annual payments to the group.
Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey congressman who led the efforts to lobby Chinese officials to release Tursun, says the incident makes it clear the UNFPA has done nothing to stop China from engaging in forced abortions.
“To forcibly abort a woman while the world watches in full knowledge of what is going on would make a mockery of [Beijing’s] claim that the central government disapproves of the practice, and of the U.N. Population Fund pretense that it has moderated the Chinese population planners’ cruelty,” Smith said.
Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, also commented on the ramifications of the incident.
Perkins told LifeNews.com that, if Obama carries through on his promise to fund UNFPA, "America will no longer be an innocent bystander of tragedies like this one. Instead, the U.S. will be knowingly funding forced abortions like Arzigul's with millions of taxpayer dollars."
He urged pro-life advocates to contact the future Obama administration and urge strong opposition to the funding.
Steven Mosher, the president of the Population Research Institute, says he is well aware of the link between the UNFPA and the forced-abortion one-child policy in China.
"We know. It was the Population Research Institute whose investigation in China led the Bush administration to cut off funding to the UNFPA for the past seven years," he said. "We have continued to monitor the situation in China, and we stand by our assertion that the UNFPA was--and is--involved in coercive abortions in China."
PRI's original report, entitled "UNFPA, China, and Coercive Family Planning," is based on an investigation conducted by PRI researchers in China's Sihui County.
Relying on interviews with over two dozen victims and witnesses, the 2001 investigation found that coercive abortion and sterilization practices were taking place in that county where the UNFPA had supposedly instituted a "client-centered and voluntary family planning program."
"In fact, PRI's investigation revealed that the UNFPA shared an office with the very Chinese family planning officials who were locking up women and carrying out forced abortions," Mosher said.
Mosher, too, says Obama must recant on his promise to fund the controversial United Nations agency.
"It would be a shame if Obama abandons both the women of China and one of his most high-profile backers in the name of the failed ideology of population control," he said.
"Americans don't want their money going to an organization--the UNFPA--which works hand-in-glove with China's population control police as they drag women off for forced abortions and forced sterilizations. In protecting American taxpayers from having to fund such atrocities, President Bush made the right call," Mosher concluded.
Related web sites:
Family Research Council - http://www.frc.org
Population Research Institute - http://www.pop.org
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http://lifenews.com/state3650.html (Wyoming Pregnant Woman, Unborn Baby Die, Case Highlights Need for Law)
http://lifenews.com/state3649.html (Corpus Christi, Texas City Council Revokes Planned Parenthood Funding)
http://lifenews.com/int997.html (British Pro-Life Group Joins Legal Fight to Protect Ireland Abortion Ban in Court)
http://lifenews.com/int996.html (Forced Abortion Incident in China Proves Pro-Choice Groups Are Pro-Abortion)
http://lifenews.com/bio2638.html (Adult Stem Cell Research Yields Major Success in Patient's Windpipe Transplant)
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