The Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life PAC, recently tried to place an ad on four billboards stating that Ohio Representative Steve Driehaus voted for federally funded abortion when he voted for Obamacare.
Driehaus didn’t like that and sent out his lawyers to silence them. The lawyers did their thug lawyers things and brought suit against the SBA to the Ohio Elections Commission and convinced the billboard company not to run the ads while the case is pending.
The Commission inexplicably accepted the case. The SBA List says the commision is squelching the group’s free speech rights.
Can’t we all agree that Obamacare is intended to fund abortion. Can’t we all agree on that? HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius even admitted it. The text of the law says it. The one Democrat from Stupak’s supposed cadre of pro-life Democrats that actually voted against Obamacare Dan Lipinski said: “the executive order probably would not stand [in court] and even if it did stand, it only covered part of the abortion funding—the direct funding of abortion [at Community Health Centers], not the fees for [subsidized] health plans.”
But the SBA List isn’t allowed to state the truth, isn’t allowed to say what the HHS Secretary herself said.
Remember the recent kerfuffle concerning the funding to states for plans that included funding for abortion. The HHS was forced to actually issue a rule directly prohibiting states from funding abortions for those in the federally funded “high-risk pool” program.
Doesn’t that mean that Obamacare as passed did fund abortions? But facts don’t matter when it comes to politics. And it seems free speech doesn’t matter when it comes to politics either.
The Weekly Standard reports:
National Democrats have given up on Ohio Representative Steve Driehaus’s reelection campaign, but the race took an interesting turn today when the Ohio Elections Commission agreed to allow Driehaus’s case against a pro-life group, the Susan B. Anthony List, to proceed.
A three-member panel of the commission ruled that there was “probable cause” to believe that the SBA List is falsely trying to claim in an ad that Driehaus “voted for taxpayer-funded abortion” in the national health care law. The panel’s vote was two-to-one, with a Republican member voting against Driehaus and a Democratic member and an independent member voting in Driehaus’s favor. The independent member, Harvey Shapiro, had to recuse himself from a 2006 gay marriage elections case because he had donated $1,000 to the campaign against a gay marriage ban. The case will be heard by the seven-member Ohio Elections Commission, which is comprised of three Democrats, three Republicans, and the independent Shapiro. “A criminal conviction for making false campaign statements is punishable by up to six months in jail and/or a fine of up to $5,000,” Cincinnati.com reports.
Guess when they meet again to decide? Four days before the election. Convenient, huh?
This is outrageous and is clearly the silencing of free speech.
The only good news to come out of that district is the the Democratic Party has pulled its party money from the race which could spell doom for Driehaus. But if this works in this district expect it to be copies elsewhere and expect to see efforts in every election to silence pro-lifers everywhere.
October 15, 2010 at 2:48 pm
I thought this sort of thing was decided in favor of prolifers by SCOTUS – oh, that's right! Court decisions don't matter to liberals if the decision doesn't go their way.
October 15, 2010 at 2:52 pm
What's funny is the opposition has managed to get the government to put up protective bubbles around abortion providing clinics. The media writes false articles about the crowds at the March for Life and seek to dennegrate any person who stands for the unborn while praising to the highest star they can imagine, the goodliness of people who fund abortions or provide them. Advocates of the pro-choice position ignore facts 50 million slaughtered and counting, bodies (found in bins, jars, left as so much garbage), films (Lila Rose), exposes (Abby Johnson) and arrests for false bomb reports and implied or threatened violence on pro lifer's by those who see abortion as a good. They silence political speech or simply use the gift of never printing or allowing pro-life positions to be spoken, and still, the number of people who have come to understand that the humanity of a person is not dependent upon their capacity to act or their geography, keeps growing. The Holy Spirit at work.
October 15, 2010 at 4:26 pm
I see (and I know myriad others do as well) stark parallels between the today's pro-life movement, and the civil rights movement in the 1960s. In the most simplistic terms, opponents to rights of the unborn are doing their darndest to keep images of violence and terror against the unborn hidden under a bushel, so to speak. All that is hidden, however, will be revealed. Just like this nation reached a tipping-point where it could not ignore the images of dogs attacking civil rights marchers in Birmingham, how much longer can the public continue to ignore the gruesome and grisly images of a murdered unborn, or the beautiful and joyful image of a baby on an ultrasound monitor?
As our Holy Father reminds us, "People who pray are not wasting their time, even though the situation appears desperate and seems to call for action alone." Our prayers are being answered in God's time, but we can never let up in the struggle to overcome evil.
Continue to expose and fight injustice with charity and great compassion, pray for conversion of hearts, and shout the truth from the rooftops!
October 15, 2010 at 4:42 pm
I guess it depends on the presentation. Over here in DC, Missy Smith got away with extremely pro-life ads. See link for videos.
The media is obliged to take political ads and have no right of censorship. So running for office is one of the most effective ways to get pro-life ads on TV. Check out the two below which are scheduled to run in the late news hours on the three major networks.
Check out
http://divine-ripples.blogspot.com/2010/10/videos-dc-candidate-missy-smiths-ads-is.html
October 17, 2010 at 7:12 pm
If all the souls in heaven and on earth were put on the head of a pin, all the space would be left over. The metaphysical nature of the human soul is such that it dwells wherever God infuses it, including and especially in the single cell of the newest individual of our rational nature. The immanence and indwelling of the Holy Spirit in man’s soul testifies to man’s personhood and free will.
The human being cannot live without life. He, who grows into a cytoblast, an embryo, an infant, an adult human being, has an immortal soul. (Some people choose to believe that death is the end of all suffering and physical pain. I do know that in eternity the soul of the aborted child, the euthanized adult, the suicide will realize that she was not loved. How much pain is that?)
The Notre Dame 88 belonged there, as members of the Catholic Church, they are associates of Notre Dame University. The police had no legitimate authority over them to arrest them, because they were not breaking any civil law. Notre Dame University authorities refused to welcome them, and treated them as criminals using false arrest, false witness to abuse them.
He who does not know that God, “Our Creator” created all men equal has not read the Declaration of Independence, and does not know that the state gives citizenship, God gives LIFE. An individual who does not know that the state is constituted by the sovereign personhood of the newly created, the morally and legally innocent and the standard of Justice, and that the state can only endow citizenship and vital statistics upon a new born person is no statesman but an individual searching for people to enslave and tyrannize. One who pretends to represent real people.
Therapeutic abortion intends to save the lives of the victims of an unnatural conception. Procured abortion on demand intends to kill the living human being inside the womb.