(
Social Justice South Africa)
Article by Marc Aupiais
With no Republican votes for the massive, controversial, and more recently unpopular healthcare reform pushed through the lower house of the American Congress, the Democrats, given their massive majority since the election of Barak Hussein Obama, were easily able to pass the legislation, with the support of anti-abortion Catholic Democrats, such as Bart Stupak, who had previously claimed that the bill would send federal taxpayer dollars to abortion funding. Bart Stupak, folded in his opposition, following a promise that Barak Hussein Obama, would issue a reversable Executive Order, preventing taxpayer funding of abortion. The Executive Order is likely to be overturned by US courts.
According to the Associated Press, Stupak's attempt to justify his move, was shouted down on the Republican side, with the phrase "Baby Killer". Stupak, has vastly benefited in the past from the influence of the US Catholic bishops, who have often backed his legislative efforts, even during the previous Republican administration. A YouTube video is beginning to appear on conservative websites, of Bart Stupak allegedly claiming at a Town Hall meeting that he would vote for a healthcare bill, supporting wider abortion coverage, as social conservatives begin to respond to the Stupak turnaround. We cannot confirm the veracity of the video.
In 2007, Independent Newspapers (IOL) reported on taxpayer funded abortion in South Africa, then long since passed, whereby 50% of all pregnancies end in abortion in the Republic of South Africa, where abortion laws, while themselves quite liberal, are vastly more restrictive than in the USA as regards time, and where the group reported on long lines at abortion departments of public hospitals, and the fact that many were unable to access the controversial procedure, statistically seen as wrong among the majority of South Africans. The 9th March 2007 article by Sheena Adams was titled "'Half of SA pregnancies end in abortion'", appearing on page 3 of the Johannesburg Star, according to the grouping's (IOL) website.
Multi-billion-dollar abortion firm, Planned Parenthood, while furious at the Executive Order, which due to precident: is unlikely to withstand America's courts, has welcomed the American: Stupak compromise, noting that they are pleased that the Executive Order does not, in their belief, include what they saw as the previous Stupak abortion funding ban. The Stupak amendment, which has been portrayed wrongly as an abortion funding ban, did not in fact ban taxpayer funding of abortion, only did it limit it to the current principle relating of taxpayer funding of abortion in the United States, known as the Hyde Amendment. Under the amendment funding for abortion federally would have still have been increased, but to a lesser extent, covering abortions for rape victims, incest etc.
The pro-life coalition which had allied behind Stupak, have now largely disowned him, notably the influential Susan B. Anthony List. The SBA president: President Marjorie Dannenfelser, who along with other sources has claimed that legal precident would likely see the Executive Order done away with, spoke to media of their disappointment, and planned reaction. The SBA has cancelled plans to honour Stupak. The pro-life SBA, is known for its effectiveness in campaigning for candidates it endorses, and for its campaigns against them if they break their promises on abortion. (Catholic News Agency (Catholic; independent; American- but their parent company is Spanish: ACI Prensa)
21 / 03 | March / 2010)
Bart Stupak, in accepting the compromise, has seemingly parted with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which claimed that the Senate version would fund abortions, and urged Catholics to vote against the bill. In a move linked to the White House, the Catholic Health Association (CHA) and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), via their platform Network, endorsed the Senate version of the healthcare overhaul. CHA had spent a fortune campaigning for the passage of the bill. On the 30th of July, 2009, our own service reported on the then already functioning alliance between the US president, and the CHA, who were already campaigning for this healthcare reform:
USA: Catholic Charities USA (Caritas Internationalis), Society of Saint Vincent De Paul, Catholic Health Association: support Universal Abortion plan in America?
We had reported on the odd correlation, that a board member of the Catholic Health Association, following their organizational support of Barak Obama, was then nominated to the position of Surgeon General of The United States of America, by Barak Obama, a position the CHA board member continues to hold:
"Dr. Benjamin is a member of the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. She was a Kellogg National Fellow and a Rockefeller Next Generation Leader. Some of her numerous board memberships include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, Catholic Health Association, and Morehouse School of Medicine."(US Department of Health and Human Services | Office of the Surgeon General, undated, quoted on 22nd March by our service )
Catholic Health Association, does not answer to the Vatican or independently to any one of the US bishops, but rather to its own board.
The Leadership Conference, recently was investigated by the Vatican, because of concerns that it was no longer loyal to the papacy and dogmas of the church. The Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, another grouping of nuns, representing about 10 000 (ten thousand members), and about 100 religious communities, opposed the current legislation, attacking Network as betraying Catholic beliefs, and supporting the US Catholic bishops. The leadership Conference figures, on how many nuns they represent have also been disputed by the Catholic Bishops in the US, as we do not have an accurate number to go on, we have not mentioned a figure. The healthcare overhaul was also supported by Obama allies Catholics United, whom Michigan Catholic Conference, the Catholic Bishops in that area, have slated as deceiving the American public, according to respected political commentator Thomas Peters, writing for American Papist, which is now part of Catholic Vote Action, a political watchdog of a conservative ethos:
19th March 2010.
Without Catholic support, the controversial health overhaul legislation would not have passed. Not only are many of the senior positions in the Democratic party, held by pro-abortion Catholics, but the votes of the Stupak block were vital to Obama in passing the bill. Catholics were also the swing vote which got Barak Hussein Obama elected as President of the United States of America. While historically the organizational hierarchy of the Democrats has alleged that the Republican party is too closely connected with religion, at least with the campaigning strategies of Barak Obama, allies in groupings claiming to be Catholic, and in America's many so-called Catholic universities, have been a vital part of the Democrat strategy.
It is likely that the current push, once signed into law, by Barak Obama, will have the same effect as taxpayer funded abortion has had elsewhere, a shift in societal views on abortion, something which may have influenced the Democrats to take the massive risk of forcing the overhaul.
When the passage of this health overhaul became less likely late last year, the South African African National Congress (ANC), stopped focussing on their own National Health Insurance plan, which:
"According to Alex van den Heever, a health economist, who was quoted by HASA (The Health Association of South Africa), having spoken at their Durban Conference: the NHI is a ""completely unworkable, unaffordable solution that won't improve health services despite massive increases in expenditure""(News 24 (Secular; Independent; South African) article by SAPA [South African Press Association] (Secular; Independent; South African) 08 / 06 | June / 2009). According to van den Heever: part of the proposal is to increase the Health budget by 100 Billion Rand, an astronomical and unrealistic figure, especially during a recession, and as the ANC has put forward other plans slated as unrealistic by financial experts."
(Archives 03 / 08 | August / 2009
If the choice was because on the American situation, it may result in the NHI option being considered once again in South Africa. The Public Health sector in South Africa, once seen as world class, has largely collapsed under mismanagement under the ANC governments.
