Komen Caves to Shakedown

February 17, 2012

What a whipsaw of emotion the Susan G. Komen Foundation created with its vacillating decision regarding grants to Planned Parenthood (PP).  For years, some of Komen’s state affiliates have provided grants to PP, operator of America’s largest abortion chain. 

In large part due to the enormous controversy and ill will that was generated by Komen allowing funding to go to PP, Komen’s leadership apparently tried to find a way to extricate itself from the “culture wars”.  Komen changed its grant making criteria such that PP would no longer be eligible for grants.

But Planned Parenthood and its shills in the secular media would have none of that.  Both entities unleashed a firestorm that Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic and Human Rights Institute, characterized as “nothing short of a Mafia shakedown campaign.” 

Mr. Ruse said that Planned Parenthood essentially told the Komen Foundation “either give us money or we will destroy you.”  Princeton professor Robert P. George and Notre Dame professor O. Carter Snead wrote this in a Wall Street Journal editorial:

“Faced with even the tiniest depletion in the massive river of funds Planned Parenthood receives yearly, the behemoth mobilized its enormous cultural, media, financial and political apparatus to attack the Komen Foundation in the press, on TV and through social media.

“The organization’s allies demonized the charity, attempting to depict the nation’s most prominent anti-breast cancer organization as a bedfellow of religious extremists.  A Facebook page was set up to ‘Defund the Komen Foundation.’  In short, Planned Parenthood took breast cancer victims as hostages.”

Why would PP, which has annual revenues exceeding $1 billion, go to such extremes to attack Komen over losing a relative small amount ($650,000) of its budget?  I think the answer is simple. 

Planned Parenthood is our nation’s largest abortionist, is the leading opponent to even the most modest (and popular) pro-life laws, and is a purveyor of extremely offensive and dehumanizing “sex education.”  This puts PP on the radical fringe of society.  Hence, it is necessary for PP to link itself to more reputable entities like Komen and to offer non-controversial health services in order to deflect attention and criticism from its wicked activities.

Komen should have never allowed itself to be connected to such a morally bankrupt and controversial organization.  And while Komen deserves some credit for trying to extricate itself from PP, unless and until it decides to do so permanently, pro-lifers should cease their support for the organization.

Making a decision to cease support for Komen does not mean ceasing support for programs and research that benefit persons with breast cancer.  In Nebraska, for example, four Catholic hospitals sponsor breast cancer-related programs that currently receive funding from Komen’s Nebraska affiliate.  Thus, contributors could give directly to these programs instead of going through Komen.

These hospitals/programs are as follows: 

Alegent Health Cancer Center (Omaha) - “Image Recovery Center Patient Assistance Fund”.  This Center helps breast cancer patients manage the serious side effects that accompany the treatment of breast cancer. 

Good Samaritan Hospital Foundation (Kearney) - “Breast Health Screening and Testing for Women at High Risk for Breast Cancer”.  This program provides services to women who don’t meet the age requirements for the Every Woman Matters Program.

Saint Elizabeth Foundation (Lincoln) - “Early Detection in Minority Populations”.  This project will provide 75 no-cost mammograms for low-income, uninsured or underinsured women who do not qualify for the State of Nebraska's Every Woman Matters Program. 

Saint Francis Medical Center (Grand Island) - “The Outreach Risk Awareness Project”  This project seeks to increase breast cancer awareness of patient risk, diagnosis and treatment for minority and low-income women with the use of kiosks, breast models and other education materials.

Please pray for Nancy Brinker and her colleagues at Komen.  And send the following message to her at news@komen.org: “I am gravely disappointed that Planned Parenthood will again be eligible for grants from Komen.  Please work to concentrate your efforts on lifesaving care for women and to end all ties with Planned Parenthood.”

            The Nebraska Legislature is debating a bill (LB 540) that would require the state of Nebraska to expand taxpayer funding for birth control and other “family planning services”.  The bill was introduced by the Health and Human Services Committee which is chaired by Sen. Kathy Campbell.

            The federal Medicaid program already covers such services for women who are at or below the federal poverty income level.  However, Medicaid allows states to apply for a waiver in order to provided free (or discounted) birth control to women, men and adolescents, who have incomes above federal poverty guidelines. 

            LB 540 would expand income eligibility to 185 percent of the poverty guidelines.  This would expand Medicaid payments for contraceptive family planning services so that approximately 26,000 more women would become eligible for these taxpayer-funded services.  And Planned Parenthood, which operates the nation’s largest abortion chain, would be a major beneficiary of these guaranteed taxpayer-funded payments.

            I testified, on behalf of the Nebraska Catholic Conference, in opposition to this bill when it received a public hearing last year.  Unfortunately, the bill was voted out of committee a few weeks ago and was debated earlier this week on the floor of the Legislature.  At the time of this writing its outcome was not certain.

            One of the prime arguments used to promote the expansion of taxpayer funding for birth control is that it will reduce unintended pregnancies and abortions.  I understand the intuitive appeal of this argument.  However, there is little, if any, hard evidence to back it up.  And the evidence that is provided is embarrassing in its reliance on estimates and assumptions, not on empirical data. 

            In contrast, there are dozens of published studies (i.e. “hard” data), conducted by birth control apologists, concluding that increased access to contraception does not reduce unintended pregnancies or abortions.  Here are a few examples:

The January 2011 isssue of the journal Contraception (Volume 83, Issue 1, pages 82-87) featured a 10 year (1997 to 2007) study that examined the use of contraceptive methods in order to reduce the number of elective abortions.  During the study period the overall use of contraceptive methods increased (from 49.1% to 79.9%) but the elective abortion rate doubled (from 5.52 to 11.49 per 1000 women).    

In a September 2006 editorial in the British Medical Journal Anna Glasier, a leading contraception researcher said: “Ten studies in different countries have shown that giving women a supply of emergency contraception to keep at home ... increases use by twofold to threefold ... but [has] had no measurable effect on rates of pregnancy or abortion.”

In a May 2004 article in the publication Contraception Anna Glasier said about emergency contraception that “[e]stimates of efficacy are unsubstantiated by randomized trials. Efficacy is based on rather unreliable data and a great many assumptions and have been questioned both in the past and more recently. ... While advanced provision of EC probably prevents some pregnancies for some women some of the time, the strategy did not produce the public health breakthrough hoped for.”

James Trussell who originated the claim that easier access to emergency contraception could “result in a greater than 50% reduction in abortion rates” has conceded that 23 published studies from 10 countries disprove his claim. According to every one of the 23 studies, published between 1998 and 2006, easier access to EC fails to achieve any statistically significant reduction in rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion.

And then there is this inconvenient statistic:  a majority of women having abortions were using contraception in the month they got pregnant.  Here’s how the Alan Guttmacher Institute (i.e. Planned Parenthood) explained this phenomenon: “because women who are using contraceptives are motivated to prevent an unplanned birth, they are more likely than women who were not using contraception to seek an abortion should they accidentally become pregnant.”

Obama’s Unconscionable Attack on Religious Freedom

February 3, 2012

On Friday, Jan. 20, the Obama Administration leveled a direct and unprecedented attack on religion and First Amendment rights. Dismissing the pleas of Catholic and non-Catholic religious leaders and institutions, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, issued a regulatory mandate forcing all health insurance plans to pay for sterilizations and contraceptive drugs and devices, including those that can cause abortions.

Cardinal-elect Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York City and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said "[t]o force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable. It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom."

In a Jan. 25 Wall Street Journal editorial, Cardinal-elect Dolan cited the fierce defense our nation’s Founding Fathers gave to religious liberty, presenting it as the first freedom in the Bill of Rights.

His Eminence cited George Washington who said this: "The conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with great delicacy and tenderness; and it is my wish and desire, that the laws may always be extensively accommodated to them." And James Madison, who authored the First Amendment, said: "Conscience is the most sacred of all property."

His Eminence also pointed out the bitter irony that the Obama Administration issued its edict only two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court "unanimously and enthusiastically reaffirmed these longstanding and foundational principles of religious freedom" in its Hosanna-Tabor ruling. "The court made clear that they include the right of religious institutions to control their internal affairs."

The Obama Administration’s attack on religious liberty will and must be fought vigorously. Even many non-Catholic religious leaders and institutions that may not share Catholic teaching on contraception are weighing in.

As Cardinal-elect Dolan said in his editorial, "Americans of other faiths, or no faith at all… recognize that their beliefs could be next on the block. They also recognize that the cleverest way for the government to erode the broader principle of religious freedom is to target unpopular beliefs first."

In addition to fighting this attack on religious liberty, we must also fight the Obama Administration’s radical ideology which views pregnancy as a disease and contraception as preventive "healthcare." This view, that wider and easier access to contraception will reduce unintended pregnancies and abortions, is simply baseless.

First, the Guttmacher Institute (which has ties to Planned Parenthood) acknowledges that more than half of women seeking abortion in the United States are using contraception in the month they become pregnant. Guttmacher’s explanation: "because women who are using contraceptives are motivated to prevent an unplanned birth, they are more likely than women who were not using contraceptives to seek an abortion should they accidentally become pregnant."

Second, dozens of studies conducted by those who were trying to prove that contraception reduces unintended pregnancy and abortion found this not to be the case. For example, James Trussell, who originated the claim that easier access to emergency contraception could "result in a greater than 50% reduction in abortion rates" has conceded that 23 published studies from 10 countries disprove his claim. According to every one of the 23 studies, published between 1998 and 2006, easier access to emergency contraception fails to achieve any statistically significant reduction in rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion.

Our bishops are asking us to pray and do penance that the Obama Administration’s attack on religious freedom will be reversed. They also urge us to contact our members of Congress to protest this outrage and to insist on the passage of the "Respect for Rights of Conscience Act."

Nebraskans are fortunate that Congressman Jeff Fortenberry introduced this Act in the House (H.R. 1179) and Congressmen Lee Terry and Adrian Smith co-sponsored it. And both of our Senators, Mike Johanns and Ben Nelson, have co-sponsored the Senate version of the Act (S. 1467). Please thank them and urge them to do everything possible to get this critical policy enacted.

Will You Stand Up for Life?

January 27, 2012

As I’m writing this column, the March for Life in Washington, D.C. is about to get started. Prior to the March, tens of thousands of young people are attending youth rallies and Masses around Washington before heading down to the Mall where they will join hundreds of thousands for the March.

The March for Life has been around for nearly 40 years, beginning in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s abortion rulings of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. The March is part of a long tradition in our country of marching in the streets to protest and draw attention to the violation of basic human and civil rights.

By itself, a march is limited in its ability to right the wrongs of our culture of death. But as a part of a larger initiative or program to build a culture of life and love, a march can get our society’s attention and shake it from its complacency or ignorance.

The Bishops’ Pastoral Plan for Pro Life Activities, the U.S. Bishops formal pro-life program, provides this larger initiative to guide us. The Pastoral Plan has four components: Prayer and Worship, Public Information and Education, Pastoral Care and Public Policy. The March for Life in D.C. and similar state-level marches are an important part of our public information and education efforts.

I’m very pleased that Nebraska is being well represented at the March for Life in D.C. Participating in the March are six bus loads of high school students from the Archdiocese of Omaha, two bus loads from the dioceses of Lincoln and Grand Island and two bus loads of college students from the Newman Center at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln (UNL). And there are dozens of adults from Nebraska participating as well.

This Saturday, Jan. 28, there is another opportunity for Nebraskans to stand up and march for life at the annual Walk for Life in Lincoln. The Walk is sponsored by Nebraska Right to Life and begins at 10 a.m. with a march from the west steps of our Capitol building to the student union on the UNL campus.

The Walk for Life also features a keynote speaker at the student union following the march. This year’s speaker is Ryan Bomberger. According to his bio, Mr. Bomberger was conceived in rape and adopted into a bi-racial family.

Bomberger started the billboard campaign, Too Many Aborted, aimed at attacking Planned Parenthood’s targeting of minority babies for abortion. And, along with his wife Bethany, Bomberger founded The Radiance Foundation to work on pro-life issues.

Preceding the Walk for Life, a pro-life Mass will be held at St. Mary Church (just across the street from the Capitol at 14^th and K streets) beginning at 9 a.m. Most Reverend William J. Dendinger, Bishop of Grand Island, will be the main celebrant for this Mass. Father Sid Bruggeman will be the homilist.

Father Bruggeman is a life-long native of Nebraska and a former ordained Protestant minister. He began formation for the priesthood in 2005 and was ordained for the Diocese of Grand Island in 2009. Father now serves the St. Libory Catholic parish in St. Libory, Nebr., and is the Catholic chaplain of the Veteran’s Administration Medical Center in Grand Island.

This Mass and Walk for Life provide a great opportunity to pray and walk for unborn children, their mothers and fathers, and our entire nation, that the injustice and violence of abortion will end soon. Please make every effort to come to Lincoln this Saturday and join me and thousands of other Nebraskans in standing up for human life. 

Roe’s Legacy: Death and Destruction

January 20, 2012

            January 22, 1973.  This is the day that the United States Supreme Court issued its infamous rulings in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.  Most people have heard of Roe, but few have heard of its companion case Doe. 

            Roe v. Wade legalized abortion for virtually any reason during all nine months of pregnancy.  In its ruling, the Court broke the nine months of pregnancy into three trimesters. 

            In the first trimester, the Court ruled that abortion may not be restricted in any way.  In the second trimester, the Court said that abortion may be regulated only in ways that benefit the mother’s health.  In the third trimester, the Court said that abortion could be prohibited except when the mother’s “health” might be endangered by the pregnancy.

            The Court didn’t define “health” in Roe, it defined “health” in Roe’s lesser known companion case Doe v. Bolton.  In Doe, the Court defined “health” as: “all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age—relevant to the well-being of the patient.”

            Obviously, this definition of “health” is so broad that virtually any reason can fit within it.  A 1983 United States Senate report acknowledged this permissiveness when it said that “[n]o significant legal barriers of any kind whatsoever exist today in the United States for a woman to obtain an abortion for any reason during any stage of her pregnancy.”

            In Roe, the Court claims that it “found” a right to abortion in the Constitution.  But even legal experts who support legal abortion dispute that claim.  John Hart Ely, a Yale Law School professor said this:  Roe v. Wade is “a very bad decision…because it is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” 

            Edward Lazarus, former clerk to Justice Blackmun (who authored Roe) said, “As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible…[It is] one of the most intellectually suspect constitutional decisions of the modern era.

            And Harvard Law School professor, Lawrence Tribe, said this:  “One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.”

            Of course, the biggest casualty of Roe and Doe is not intellectual or legal integrity, but real human lives—and souls.  According to the abortion industry’s own estimates, more than 50 million abortions have been committed in the United States since 1973.  And every year more than one million unborn human beings are added to the death toll.

            In Nebraska, more than 175,000 abortions have been reported since 1973.  That is an average of more than 4600 per year or almost 90 per week. 

            Such cold statistics don’t reflect the reality that every abortion destroys a unique and unrepeatable human life; a sacred gift given by, and made in the image and likeness of, our Almighty and Ever-living God. 

And every abortion wounds the child’s mother, father, family and society.  These wounds include physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual wounds for those involved.  For our society, one wound is a dulled collective conscience that has degraded all human life and opened the door for attacks against vulnerable humans at other stages of life.

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 373, says that “In all the dioceses of the United States of America, January 22 (or January 23, when January 22 falls on a Sunday) shall be observed as a particular day of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life and of penance for violations to the dignity of the human person committed through acts of abortion.” 

On this 39^th anniversary of Roe and Doe please commit—or recommit—yourself to fighting the insidious evil of abortion.  And please join me in offering prayer and penance on Monday, January 23, for this intention.  For surely abortion is one of those demons that our Lord said (Mt. 17:21) could only be expelled with prayer and fasting. 

One Rose One Life

January 13, 2012

            For more than thirty years, the Knights of Columbus in Nebraska has sponsored an annual fundraising project known as One Rose One Life.  Conducted on or around the anniversary of Roe v Wade (January 22^nd), this project takes its name from the paper roses that were handed out by the Knights as part of this project.

            Several years ago, the Knights replaced the paper roses with a prayer card.  In addition to a pro-life prayer, this prayer cared features a winning poster from the Knights-sponsored pro-life poster contest for students in Kindergarten through the sixth grade.

            According to the Knights, an impressive 94 percent of all the funds raised go to support various pro-life organizations and activities in Nebraska.  My office, since its inception 21 years ago, is a major beneficiary of these funds.  And, in the last four years, more than 50 other pro-life organizations, events and initiatives throughout Nebraska have received funding from One Rose One Life.

            These recipients include numerous pregnancy-help centers, Lincoln Right to Life, MavCatholics Students for Life (Univ. of Nebr. at Omaha), Pope Paul VI Institute, McCook Right to Life, St. Thomas Aquinas Newman Center (Univ. of Nebr. at Lincoln), Thomas More Society, Pro Life Billboards throughout Nebraska.

In addition, the Knights have provided significant funding to the Virtue Media pro-life television ad campaign each of the three times my office has sponsored it in Nebraska.

One of the special projects that the Knights have funded recently is the purchase of a 4-D ultrasound machine for the Collage Center, a pregnancy-help center in Kearney.  The positive results of this new machine are extraordinary. 

According to the Collage Center, many lives have been saved because of the ultrasound machine.  In fact, the Center has found that 90 percent of abortion-prone women who have an ultrasound decide against abortion.

The Knights intend to build on the success of the Collage Center by purchasing two more ultrasound machines for pregnancy centers.  One will be for Essential Pregnancy Services in Omaha and a second one for the Women’s Resource Center in North Platte.

 There are no formal pro-life collections conducted by the Church.  Consequently, the Knights’ One Rose One Life project provides an excellent opportunity to donate to not only the Church’s pro-life efforts, but many pro-life efforts outside the Church as well.

There are two ways that Catholics can give.   First and foremost, if you attend Mass at a parish where a Knights of Columbus council is present, check with your parish KC Council for the dates when they will be conducting One Rose, One Life.  

If your parish does not have a Knights Council, it can still participate by requesting and distributing donation envelopes in the parish.  Bob and Anita Finger, the state pro-life chaircouple for the Knights can assist by contacting them at bob.finger.kofc@gmail.com.

A second way to donate to One Rose One Life is to simply write a check payable to: Knights of Columbus Pro-Life Foundation of Nebraska and send it to: Knights of Columbus, One Rose One Life Campaign, PO Box 451157, Omaha, NE 68145.  Please put One Rose, One Life on the memo line.  The Knights of Columbus Pro-Life Foundation of Nebraska is a 501(c)3 charitable organization.

On behalf of all the recipients of the Knights’ pro-life funding, I encourage you to be as generous as possible toward One Rose One Life.

January Packed With Pro-Life Events

January 6, 2012

January will, as usual, be a busy month for pro-lifers. On Jan. 4, the Nebraska Legislature starts its 2012 session. There will undoubtedly be a pro-life bill or two debated in this legislative session. More on that in coming weeks.

On Jan. 11 and 12, my office is bringing Leah Darrow to speak to all-school assemblies at Grand Island Central Catholic, Skutt High School (Omaha), Pius X High School (Lincoln) and Scotus High School (Columbus). Ms. Darrow went from being a star on a hit reality TV show, American’s Next Top Model, to being a Catholic speaker focusing on her conversion, modesty and chastity.

A promotional flier with more details is on my website at: www.nebcathcon.org (under "Pro-Life"). It also appears on page 13 of this issue of the Register. Ms. Darrow’s presentations are open to the public so if you live near one of these schools, please feel free to join us.