Life Links 3/10/10

John McCormack of the Weekly Standard interviewed Bart Stupak on abortion and health care reform. Stupak isn't down with trusting the Senate to fix the abortion language at a later stage.

"Everyone’s going around saying there’s a compromise—there’s no such thing," Stupak said. What's changed between this week and last, Stupak went on, is that he had his first real conversation with Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Congressman Henry Waxman about fixing the bill.

But Stupak made one thing very clear: While he's optimistic, there's a lot of confusion about how the House would structure a bill that he could vote for. Stupak says "the majority party can get it done. Where there’s a will there’s a way." But: "No one has said here's how you do it, here's the legislative scheme."

Stupak affirmed that he will not settle for an agreement to pass the bill now and fix the bill's problems on abortion later: "If they say 'we’ll give you a letter saying we'll take care of this later,' that’s not acceptable because later never comes."

Michigan Democrat Dale Kildee who previously has had a solid prolife voting record (until he voted to expand the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research) tells Roll Call that he'll probably vote for health care reform without the Stupak Amendment. It's so disappointing when previously strong prolifers just abandon their beliefs and principles.


The Catholic News Agency provides some of Archbishop Charles Chaput's comments to Cleveland Right to Life's symposium. He provides lots of good advice.


The California Stem Cell Report has a post on CIRM's plans spend $50 million to fund one or two clinical trials using pluripotent stem cells.

California voters approved the stem cell research effort five years ago, creating CIRM as a way to circumvent federal restrictions on funding for human embryonic stem cell research. Prop. 71 gave top priority to support for that area. Notably, however, the clinical trial proposal does not extend to hESC research.

Basil Merenda writes about how a Pennsylvania law prevents state authorities from informing licensing boards about criminal investigations on state-licensed professionals. The only reason the deplorable conditions at Kermit Gosnell's abortion clinic were reported to the licensing board was because the evidence was gathered by federal authorities.


Florida television station WHCG might want to think about changing this sub-headline.

A group of pro-choice advocates hit the streets of Panama City Beach Tuesday wanting an end to abortions.