Obama Opposes Healthcare Funding for Women

We constantly hear from both sides of the political spectrum that we have had 8 years of Republican majority government and that they have done nothing to reduce abortion. Although there is significant evidence to the contrary and considering the slim majority which was never sufficient to override the Democratic obstruction on the issue it is amazing what did get done. Here is another piece of information taken from the NARAL website regarding the Allard Amendment which would have codified recognition of unborn children as actual human beings.

Of course this was opposed by Democrats including Sen.'s Obama and Biden along with the usual pro-abortion groups. Although Sen. Obama claims that Republicans don't care for the health of the mother and proposes with his change mantra that he will provide healthcare to poor pregnant women he voted against this Republican sponsored amendment because it would have recognized the unborn child for what it is, a living human being. Here's the source.

There is also more at Lifenews.com

What's At Stake?
Pro-Choice Victory in the Senate!

Background material on the amendment:
When Sen. Allard explained his amendment to codify the Bush administration's "unborn child" regulation, he said this would not be the first time this definition of an "unborn child" was put into federal law. Don't be misled by that statement. It is true that the so-called "Unborn Victims of Violence Act" and many other anti-choice proposals use this same definition of an "unborn child," but this whole SCHIP regulation has never before been codified in federal law. Sen. Allard's amendment does not simply repeat some existing piece of law; it would have put the controversial SCHIP regulation into statute for the first time ever. Why does that matter?

For years, the right-to-life movement has worked to build a case for its next challenge to Roe v. Wade. As part of that effort, anti-choice legal activists have systematically tried to give legal "personhood" rights to an embryo or fetus everywhere possible in federal and state law. (The "Unborn Victims of Violence Act" is just one example of this strategy; there are many others.) Today's Allard amendment is another attempt to give a pregnancy "personhood" rights in law. The next time a case to reverse Roe is before the Supreme Court, anti-choice lawyers will then point to all these examples in statute, arguing that society, culture, and the law have "evolved" since 1973 and now recognize a pregnancy as a separate legal person in a variety of settings. The more examples to which they can point as "evidence" of this legal "evolution," the greater weight their claim will carry. For this reason,
pro-choice lawmakers must very carefully examine each attempt to give an embryo
or fetus "personhood" rights in law, considering its potential use in the next challenge to legal abortion.

In unguarded moments, anti-choice advocates themselves admit this strategy:
One prominent anti-choice legal advocate, Samuel Casey of the Christian Legal Society, describes the strategy candidly: "In as many areas as we can, we want to put on the books that the embryo is a person. . . . That sets the stage for a jurist to acknowledge that human beings at any stage of development deserve protection – even protection that would trump a woman's interest in terminating a pregnancy."

When Sen. Orrin Hatch was asked about the purpose of the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act," he told a reporter: "They say it undermines abortion rights. It does."
And when the controversial "unborn child" regulation was first unveiled by the Bush administration in 2002, a prominent anti-choice newsletter, the "Pro-Life Infonet," applauded the move, specifically because, under this rule, "unborn children will be recognized by [sic] government as children."

Again, in sum, the Allard amendment has two true purposes: (1) to entangle the SCHIP legislation in anti-abortion politics; and (2) to continue the strategy of undermining the legal foundation of Roe v. Wade