ObamaCare's Baby Death Panels

My wife, Gena, and I mourn with the rest of the nation over the murder and maiming of innocent citizens and lawmakers in Arizona this past Saturday morning. We, too, pray for the victims and survivors. It makes us even more passionate in our fight for human life and reminding the world that from the womb to the tomb, human life is precious and should be prized.

Last week, two questions dominated the political landscape regarding Obamacare. First, will the new 112th Congress repeal it? And secondly, if Obamacare didn't offer advanced directives for end-of-life planning (aka "death panels"), then why did the Obama administration just repeal a Medicare regulation and reference for it covered under the new health care law?

Those are both great questions. But the one question being overlooked by too many is this one: If the 112th Congress fails to repeal Obamacare, will it include "baby death panels" in the future? In other words, will taxpayer money be used to provide for abortions under the new universal health care law?

It's been coming down Washington's political pike for two years.

Remember, during the president's first year in office, when the Senate tabled the amendment introduced by Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, which would have banned federal funds from providing for abortion in the universal health care reform bill?

Then the House and Senate, on secret Sunday sessions, passed an omnibus bill and its provision that also overturned the 1988 Dornan amendment, which prevented taxpayer dollars from funding abortions in Washington, D.C. (Tragically, that omnibus bill also appropriated $648.5 million for international family planning funding — an increase of $103 million over 2009 — and contained funding for Planned Parenthood and for the United Nations Population Fund, both of which have pro-abortion agendas.) Next will likely be the Hyde amendment, which prohibits the same when it comes to federal spending.

The 111th Congress repeatedly rejected any amendments to the universal health care bills that would have prevented taxpayer money from being used for abortions. In the end, even the Stupak-Pitts amendment in the House and the Nelson-Hatch amendment in the Senate were sidestepped, on the basis that the president would sign an executive order promising that federal funds would not be used for funding abortions.

Of course, President Barack Obama's executive orders aren't worth the paper they are printed on. Proof came this past year, when it was discovered that federal funds were, in fact, being funneled to provide for abortive services in Pennsylvania and New Mexico.

The truth is that when our country elected Obama as president, we placed a man in the highest office in the land who had the most liberal views and voting record on abortion of any president in American history. Our president, who once confessed on the campaign trail that estimating when a baby gets human rights was above his "paygrade," has graded human life in the womb in such a way that he has zero problem signing into law a piece of legislation that will terminate the lives of millions of babies. He certainly wasn't joking when he told Planned Parenthood during his presidential campaign that he would "turn the page" on the abortion culture war.

Planned Parenthood has just filed a restraining order trying to keep you from discovering information from a former Planned Parenthood director (Bryan, Texas) and "Employee of the Year," Abby Johnson. There's no doubt why; Abby already has helped to expose the multibillion-dollar marketing of abortion, in the fifth episode of the Emmy-winning series "Facing Life Head-On," available to watch online. She also is blowing the whistle on her former employer and telling the shocking truth about everything that she saw inside the abortion industry — and why she resigned her job to join the pro-life movement — in her brand-new book, "Unplanned." (You can get a free chapter of it at http://UnplannedWebcast.com.)

Planned Parenthood is the long arm of government for the abortion industry. In fact, consider that from 2002-08, Planned Parenthood, the largest but not the only abortion agency to receive government funds, received $657.1 million from federal taxpayers alone. And in just a single year, from 2008-09, Planned Parenthood received $363.2 million in government grants and contracts, a $13.6 million increase from the previous year, which resulted in 324,800 abortions.

The question that I keep coming back to is the one Sen. Hatch asked more than a year ago: "Why should people of conscience be forced to participate in any aspect of abortion?"

To give you hope, Gena and I would also encourage you to visit the website http://www.IAmSecond.com, started by our dear friends Norm and Anne Miller. In particular, please listen there to the powerful testimony of Lisa Luby Ryan. Please also read the article "50 Ways To Help Unborn Babies and Their Mothers," by my friend and prolific author Randy Alcorn. It's one of a host of great resources at his website, http://www.epm.org.

(Next week, I'll explain not only how the pro-life cavalry has come to Washington but also how you can assist it via three particular action items, just in time for Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, which is Jan. 23. I also tell how we can esteem human life in the chapter "Reclaim the Value of Human Life," in my New York Times best-seller "Black Belt Patriotism," a free chapter from which is available at http://www.ChuckNorrisNewBook.com.)

To find out more about Chuck Norris and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.