Senator Reid's tenuous win today. Three quarters of people disagree with his abortion provisions!

This afternoon, the Senate voted to allow debate on Senator Reid's health care bill. We are indebted to Life News for their analysis of the proceedings. The bill actually taxes families for the medical care of their special needs children! We will be analyzing this diabolical provision of the bill in later emails. Of special note to us in Massachusetts is the fact that Senator Kirk's office is saying there is a conscience clause in the bill. It is in the abortion section, so, at most, it would allow doctors to refuse to commit abortions. It makes no attempt to protect the conscience rights of doctors in other situations, the conscience rights of taxpayers, patients and family members. It is time to send a polite note to Senator Kirk at his home expressing your deep concern about abortion, rationing, denial of care, or denial of conscience rights for doctors, patients, and taxpayers. The Honorable Paul Kirk 62 Sawmill road Marstons Mills, MA. 02648 If you would like further information, please visit the Mass. Citizens Health Care Page. Do not be discouraged! It is early days. We are just getting started! Thank you for the calls you made to Senator Kirk on Thursday and Friday and for writing to him this week! Anne Fox, President Mass. Citizens for Life PS. I urge you to forward this email to everyone you know who is concerned! Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- With the bare minimum needed, Senate Democrats voted on Saturday night to begin the official debate and amendment process for a health care reform bill that allows for massive abortion funding. The measure sponsored by Senate leader Harry Reid could fund hundreds of thousands of abortions. The vote split entirely on party lines with 60 Democrats voting to break the Republican filibuster supported by 39 party members in the Senate. Several Democrats who may ultimately vote against the bill supported cloture to end debate on the Motion to Proceed. They included Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, the only Democrats in the Senate who call themselves pro-life and pro-abortion Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, who joins then in wanting a Stupak-like amendment to ban the abortion funding. Democrats in swing states, like Arkansas' Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman -- each of whom could ultimately vote against the bill -- also supported cloture and the Motion to Proceed on debate. They said they hope to see the bill amended to correct some of their concerns. But Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the best opportunity to change the bill is to defeat it. "The best opportunity to change the bill would be at the beginning," he said. "Denying the majority leader the vote he needs to start the bill would have empowered any Democratic senator who is truly interested in making a change, whether the change was on abortion [or other issues] ... The time of maximum leverage would have been prior to tonight's vote." The abortion funding comes in both the public option as well as through the affordability credits. Senator Reid's bill provides for an unprecedented expansion of federally-funded abortion. The majority of Americans who oppose federal funding of abortion will not stand for policies that force them into paying for abortions under the guise of health care reform. The bill contains five major threats to pro-life principles. The bill allows the HHS Secretary to require coverage of any and all abortions through the public option, creates new federally-funded subsidies for private health plans that cover abortion, and requires every insurance market to include a private plan that covers abortion. The Senate health care bill also fails to sufficiently protect health care entities from discrimination on the basis that the health care entity does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions and fails to prohibit federal funding of assisted suicide. The Senate bill does not contain the Stupak amendment that the House added on a lopsided bipartisan vote. The Reid language in the new Senate health care bill is not the Stupak-Pitts language barring federal funds from going to abortion in health care. Representative of the Catholic bishops, Richard Doerflinger, has blasted the pro-abortion provisions in the bill, saying the Senate bill "is actually the worst bill we've seen so far on the life issues." Senator Orrin Hatch, (R, Utah), has said he would propose an amendmentsimilar to the Stupak amendment to remove the abortion funding from the legislation. PLEASE SUPPORT OUR LIFE SAVING WORK

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