I think the NRTLC’s views on abortion are well known. I showed that they can run for four paragraphs harranging about the need to elect a pro-abortionist in order to stop 30 million Americans from getting health insurance.

My point is that when you are buying in to the leading (and one of the more moderate) Pro-Life organizations, you are also signing up to oppose health care reform, oppose campaign finance reform, oppose reducing the costs of prescription drugs for seniors and for the support of the election of Republicans be they pro-abortion or anti-abortion.

For those who hold all of those views, they have a great organization in the NRTLC. For many of the rest of us, they go on the list of organizations we oppose.

I am not asking or expecting you to quit the NRTLC. I am just explaining why I oppose them.

And that, the NRTLC and the rest of the right wing finds unacceptable.

It seems to me the pieces you quote that were missing from Kurt’s version are as damning as the rest of it. The value of the abortion debate was not in placing restriction on abortion, or raising awareness, or getting the Stupak Amendment passed. The abortion issue was “absolutely critical to slowing down the out-of-control Obama/Reid/Pelosi train.”

The statement in its entirety clearly emphasizes the value of killing health care reform, not limiting abortion. Abortion is at best a secondary issue.

One outcome of last night’s special election is to increase the likelihood that the public has a chance to digest this massive initiative.

Contrary to what some are saying, we are not “back to square one,” because of last night’s stunning victory by Brown. (And it was amazing. Republicans had not won an open Senate seat in Massachusetts since 1966; the entire congressional delegation is Democratic; and Coakley was ahead by 30 points in polls taken just a few weeks ago.)

I don’t know if Kurt deliberately removed the portions of the statement (which apparently was NOT made at their press conference, and appears in a blog, not as an “official statement”). I’ve seen excerpts taken from the original piece elsewhere. It could easily be that someone else cut-and-pasted the parts that interested them, which excluded the detailed discussion of the status of abortion in the health care bill, and passed it around the internet. But this version doesn’t do the NRLC justice.

I’m not of the school that thinks it is a scandal.

They are a right-wing, multi-issue organization. They take positions on campaign finance reform (against), negotiating cheaper drug prices for seniors on Medicare (against) Childrens Health Insurance program (against). They work with the Republican Party but not with the Democratic Party to recruit favorable candidates and follow a generally anti-government action/pro-private enterprise philosophy.

They have every right to exist and promote their views.

I happen to disagree with them and view them as a force for injustice in our society. And I have a right to promote my views as much as they do.

They have gone on my list (Planned Parenthod has been there for decades) of groups that when they send me solictations, I ripped them up and send it back using the Business Reply enevelope they send me. That 50 cents less they then have to advance their right wing agenda.

http://www.nrlc.org/Missionstatement.htm

“The National Right to Life Committee has been instrumental in achieving a number of legislative reforms at the national level, including a ban on non-therapeutic experimentation of unborn and newborn babies, a federal conscience clause guaranteeing medical personnel the right to refuse to participate in abortion procedures, and various amendments to appropriations bills which prohibit (or limit) the use of federal funds to subsidize or promote abortions in the United States and overseas.

The ultimate goal of the National Right to Life Committee is to restore legal protection to innocent human life. The primary interest of the National Right to Life Committee and its members has been the abortion controversy; however, it is also concerned with related matters of medical ethics which relate to the right to life issues of euthanasia and infanticide. The Committee does not have a position on issues such as contraception, sex education, capital punishment, and national defense.”

I think based on their stated mission statement that supporting Brown as a Senator is plausible, since the Healthcare Bill would more likely than not include the “use of federal funds to subsidize or promote abortions in the United States and overseas”

I couldn’t find a press conference or release from the National Right To Life Committee substantiating what Kurt wrote.

Is this a scandal? Nope, they are just following there mission statement.

It is indeed a scandal, and I think we have come to some agreement on that point — and why, even if we might not agree as to when that scandal became evident and a line was crossed. But I do think this is a concern with the pro-life cause and why I think organizations should always remain pure to their essence and not support anyone if there is no one to support; people can make prudential decisions without the organization giving a recommendation, and indeed, if they don’t always do so, they become someone to be courted instead of the one doing the courting, as I fear we see going on now.

I do plan on writing them, because this is a scandal.

What matters today is Scott Brown ran on a you-know-my-meaning opposition to health care restructuring. He would be vote “41,” he vowed, meaning the Democrats would no longer have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Those 60 votes had proved an irresistible temptation to try to ram through a proposal with no Republican input and no public mandate.

So, too, have the voters of Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.