ST. LOUIS, MO. (05-01-12) – Americans United for Life Action President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest joined Missouri Rep. Todd Akin for a news conference at the Robert A. Young Federal Building, asking members of Congress to pass H.R. 4971, the “Stop Abortion Funding in Multi-State Exchange Plan Act,” or the “SAFE Act.”

“The healthcare law signed by President Obama in 2010 marked the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade,” said Dr. Yoest. “But it is not too late to change course and prevent damage that the law will cause.”

Dr. Yoest made the following statement:

“Ensuring taxpayers are not forced to fund abortion is a bipartisan effort. Thanks to the leadership of Congressman Akin who introduced the SAFE Act—and the 61 original co-sponsors—Congress can begin to right the wrong of the healthcare law that expands both abortion and taxpayer funding of abortion.

“We all remember the day in March 2010 when House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told Americans ‘We have to pass the [healthcare] bill so that you can find out what is in it.’ What we have found in the law is a massive expansion of the taxpayers’ involvement with the abortion industry.

“Even eleventh hour maneuvers to modify the healthcare law did not fool pro-life Americans—we recognized that the abortion-related provisions in the bill remained deeply flawed, and that President Obama’s Executive Order did little more than re-state those provisions.

“That is why we need the SAFE Act.  The SAFE Act will make the multi-state plan provision of the healthcare law consistent with existing law—the Hyde Amendment and, notably, the Smith Amendment to the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program.  The Hyde Amendment and the federal employee program prohibit federal subsidies from supporting insurance plans that cover abortions, regardless of whether the federal dollars are used to directly pay for abortions.

“We know that 7 out of 10 Americans do not want to see their tax dollars going to fund the abortion industry. AULA calls on Congress to pass the “SAFE Act” and protect the majority of Americans who—whether pro-life or pro-abortion—do not want to be entangled with abortion in the healthcare law.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. (3-20-12) – Americans United for Life Action put a radio ad buy in the field this week opposing Bob Kerrey’s candidacy for Senate from Nebraska. At issue are the extremely pro-abortion positions taken by the former Senator, including his support for the highly unpopular partial-birth abortion procedure.

“Bob Kerrey’s unwavering support for even the most distasteful abortion practices are out of line with the values of Nebraskans,” said AULA President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest. “And Kerrey consistently supported putting pro-abortion judges on the bench, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the most unabashed supporters of abortion-on-demand in all nine months of pregnancy. This ad is a reminder of Kerrey’s record, which is more important than rhetoric.”

The radio spot begins by noting that Kerrey is poised to leave his home in New York City to seek the Nebraska seat where his record against life is extreme. Kerrey voted 5 times against banning partial birth abortion, a procedure that even former President Bill Clinton opposed. And Kerrey consistently supported putting pro-abortion judges on the bench.

To hear the ad, listen below or click here to download a MP3.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (03-14-12) – With the help and consultation of Americans United for Life, the New Hampshire House continued to advance the pro-life cause by passing two pro-life bills today. Key was HB 1659, the Women’s Right to Know Act, which is based on AUL model legislation.

Dr. Charmaine Yoest, AUL Action’s President and CEO stated, “Informed consent is a bedrock of medical practice. But for too long, abortion providers have hidden certain information from women seeking abortion—information such as the risks abortion carries, and even the name of the physician who is going to perform the abortion.  Women in New Hampshire deserve to be given vital information before making an abortion decision so they can make a truly informed ‘choice.’”

HB 1659, sponsored by Rep. Jeanine Notter, will protect women seeking abortion by providing basic informed consent rights. At least 24 hours before the abortion, abortion providers must give women information on the physical and psychological risks of abortion as well as the probable gestational age and characteristics of her child. Women are also to be given state-prepared materials containing objective information about abortion and potential services available.

In addition to this bill, the New Hampshire House approved HB 1679, sponsored by Rep. Ross Terrio, which bans partial-birth abortion.

AUL Action calls on the New Hampshire Senate to pass these bills.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (03-01-12) — Americans United for Life Action President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest praised the Virginia House legislators for passing HB 462, a life-saving ultrasound bill.  “I want to thank the legislators for doing the right thing for Virginia women despite the outright lies spread by abortion advocates about the legislation. This bill ensures women’s health is protected by requiring abortion providers to perform a life-saving ultrasound test prior to abortion. And it allows women the option of viewing her unborn child. Women deserve to have all the best medical information prior to making a life-altering decision by allowing them to be fully informed about their choice. And ultrasounds are the gold standard of medical care for determining such important factors as whether a woman is experiencing an ectopic pregnancy.”

“AULA joins other concerned Virginians in asking Governor McDonnell to sign this life-saving legislation, and thanks him for pressing forward with the measure despite the deceptive and politically-driven media campaign against the bill,” said Dr. Yoest.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (03-01-12) – Americans United for Life Action President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest called the U.S. Senate’s vote to block the Blunt Amendment today “a travesty” and a failure to protect Americans’ First Amendment Right of Conscience. The vote today is a continuation of the unprecedented attack by the Obama Administration on this fundamental right. “The Senate has failed in its duty to provide a balance of power against the Obama Administration’s outrageous power grab that violates Americans’ freedom of conscience.  Americans should be able to make healthcare coverage choices that are consistent with their religious beliefs and moral convictions,” said Dr. Yoest. “Across the country, outrage over forcing Americans to pay for an abortion-inducing drug mandate is growing.  We will remember in November.”

Dr. Yoest said that today’s vote was further evidence that AUL’s newly-launched Freedom of Conscience educational website and video are vital to the continuing debate. The campaign includes a video showing how the Obama Administration is putting “The Con” in contraception.

“AUL launched an educational website today to help people understand the manipulative policies in the healthcare law that are forcing both an abortion coverage mandate and an abortion-inducing drug mandate on all Americans — regardless of their personal beliefs. ” she said.

“The Senators who voted to block the Amendment today revealed their determination to push an abortion agenda on all Americans,” Yoest noted.

To learn more about the issues surrounding the First Amendment Freedom of Conscience at risk under President Obama’s healthcare law, click here.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (02-10-12) – Americans United for Life Action President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest called on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to end his blockage and allow a vote on Amendment #1520 to protect Americans’ freedom of conscience in the midst of fatal flaws in President Obama’s pending healthcare law. In a letter to the Senate and to House leadership, Dr. Yoest asked Senators to support Amendment #1520 to S. 1813, the Surface Transportation bill “to protect the right to provide, purchase, or enroll in healthcare coverage that is consistent with one’s religious beliefs and moral convictions.”

“Protecting the conscience rights of Americans in the law has been a top AUL priority since 1975, noted Dr. Yoest.

“The current controversy over the abortion-inducing drug mandate in President Obama’s healthcare law reveals that without better legal protections people will be vulnerable to the whims of any administration,” said Dr. Yoest.

In her letter, Dr. Yoest noted Amendment #1520 would: “ensure that the broad mandate authorities in the (healthcare law) cannot be used to force health plan issuers or healthcare providers to furnish insurance coverage for drugs, devices, and services contrary to their religious beliefs or moral convictions.”

To read the entire letter, click here.

“Pregnancy Care Centers offer women real support and free services, unlike the abortion industry that makes millions while attacking the selfless volunteers who help women in their communities every day,” said AULA’s Jeanneane Maxon

WASHINGTON, (D.C.) – CONCORD, N.H. (01-27-12) – Americans United for Life Action Vice President of External Affairs and Corporate Counsel Jeanneane Maxon will testify later today in favor of a New Hampshire resolution commending the work of pregnancy care centers. The resolution is part of an effort from Americans United for Life and Care Net to recognize the life-changing work of pregnancy care centers that offer “compassionate and confidential counselling in a nonjudgmental manner regardless of their pregnancy outcomes,” said Maxon

The details of the hearing are as follows:

Who: Jeanneane Maxon, Vice President of External Affairs and Corporate Counsel for AUL Action

What: Testifying in favor of HCR31

When: Friday, 1-27-12, at 1:15 pm

Where: LOB 208 (Legislative Office Building, located directly behind the N.H. State House) 33 N State St., Concord, N.H.

During her remarks, Maxon will note the scope of pregnancy care centers’ work.

More than 2,500 pregnancy care centers operate across the United States including those in New Hampshire and provide invaluable free services to hundreds of thousands of women facing unplanned pregnancies.  In 2010, pregnancy care centers served over 2.3 million people.

Maxon said, “A conservative estimate of community cost savings for these services during 2010 is well over $100 million.  In addition to specific cost savings, pregnancy care centers drew on the help of 71,000 volunteers who performed an estimated 5,705,000 uncompensated hours of work in 2010.”

Uniquely qualified to testify on this issue, Maxon served as General Counsel for Care Net, a national network of pregnancy care centers, before joining AUL-AULA. To read her entire testimony, click here.

“Money is fungible,” says AULA’s Dr. Yoest. “Taxpayers should not be involuntary donors to the abortion industry and health care workers’ conscience rights must be protected.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. (10-13-11) – Americans United for Life Action President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest called on members of the U.S. House today and eventually the U.S. Senate to pass the Protect Life Act — a bill that addresses anti-life and anti-conscience threats in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the health care law enacted in 2010. The measure is designed to deal with loopholes in the health care law that would allow some monies to subsidize abortions. AULA has been active on Capitol Hill on behalf of the bill to deal with the deficiencies in the health care law.

On Wednesday, White House advisors released a statement saying that they would recommend that the President veto the measure that is expected to pass the House later today. That would be a mistake, said Dr. Yoest.

“This vote applies longstanding federal law and policy to the pro-abortion health care law. It would ensure that no funds authorized or appropriated through the health care law can be used for abortion or insurance plans that provide abortion coverage,” said Dr. Yoest.  “We hope the Senate will follow suit.”

The Protect Life Act applies the principles of the Hyde Amendment – which prohibits federal funding for abortion and federal funding for insurance plans that cover abortion – to the ACA.  It replaces the ACA’s accounting gimmick in the state insurance exchanges (which the ACA requires be in place by 2014) and closes the loopholes in other funding streams that lack any statutory restrictions on using their funds directly for abortion.

“This bill also requires the pro-abortion advocates who claimed that the health care laws does not pay for abortions to prove it,” said Dr. Yoest.  “By writing the restriction into the law, the Protect Life Act protects against a court ordering that abortion must be funded, and does not rely on administrative rulings and agency interpretations, which are subject to change, to prohibit abortion funding.”

To read further analysis of this important taxpayer protection, click here.

Washington, D.C. (08-24-11) – Americans United for Life Action President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest said that second-guessing a policy as gruesome as forced abortion is “a moral imperative” and urged the Obama Administration to engage the Chinese government on the “deadly human toll that forced abortion is causing for millions of families.”

While in China, Vice President Joe Biden made a remark about the Chinese one-child policy, in which families in urban areas are permitted only one-child while families in rural areas may have two if the first child is a girl, an outcome considered less desirable. When families do not comply with the policy, forced abortions, sterilizations and other human rights abuses occur.

LifeNews reported Biden’s comments as follows: “But as I was talking to some of your leaders, you share a similar concern here in China.  You have no safety net,” Biden said in the prepared remarks. “Your policy has been one which I fully understand — I’m not second-guessing — of one child per family.  The result being that you’re in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people.  Not sustainable.”

A Biden spokesperson said Tuesday that the Vice President’s remarks were clearly about an economic issue and that the Obama Administration does not support the one-child policy.

“The Obama Administration should engage the Chinese government on the need to end such a gruesome practice as forced abortion,” said Dr. Yoest. “Already the country is suffering from the impact of the lack of girls that has been widely reported, along with the unintended economic consequences that the Vice President spoke about during his visit to China. This policy is morally, economically and socially harmful. The Obama Administration should second-guess such a policy and speak out about the human rights violations committed in its name.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. (08-01-11) – Americans will pay for abortion-inducing drugs and will find their conscience rights trampled by the new Obama Administration guidelines for health care coverage adopted today, said Americans United for Life Action President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest.

As part of the health care reform process, AULA’s attorneys testified about the guidelines during hearings held by the Institute of Medicine. However, among the groups chosen to effectively help write the health care plan for all Americans was Planned Parenthood.

“Ideologically-driven recommendations became policy,” Dr. Yoest noted, “when the Obama Administration adopted the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendations. Nearly every American will be forced to pay for the abortion-inducing drug ella in the name of ‘preventive care.’ In addition, the conscience rights of Americans who choose not to distribute life-ending prescriptions may be trampled.”

AULA attorneys noted that the Obama Administration has offered an exceedingly narrow conscience protection that leaves the majority of pro-life Americans vulnerable by so narrowly defining the concept of “religious employer,” that most religious schools, hospitals, and charitable organizations would be excluded from its protection.  Moreover, an organization such as AULA and its sister organization, Americans United for Life  – with pro-life missions, but no religious affiliation– are unquestionably unprotected by the Administration’s fig-leaf conscience protection.

“The preventive care provision of the health care law was intended to prevent diseases, not to end pregnancies,” said Yoest. “Americans United Life Action urges Congress to pass the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, H.R. 1179, to address today’s unconscionable mandate.”

To read more about the IOM guidelines, click here.