Choice

In a new statement posted on his official website, Rep. Todd Akin warns that if the Senate-passed health care legislation becomes law, "it will create a system where unelected 'health care' bureaucrats can decide to use your taxes to pay for abortions."

This isn't true.  The Senate legislation -- with abortion language written by anti-choice Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) -- would require people who want coverage for abortions to write two checks to their insurance provider, and the plans would keep the money in a separate account from taxpayer funds.  The Associated Press analyzed the legislation last week, as did PolitiFact.com.

This morning before the House Children and Families Committee, Rep. Bryan Pratt (R-Blue Springs) presented his new informed consent/coercion bill (HB2000) which would, among other things, require providers to notify prosecuting attorneys about any abortions provided to women under the age of 17.

Current law requires providers to notify authorities of any pregnancies/abortions for girls under the age of 14. 

That, however, did not stop Pratt from telling the committee that his law could have helped prevent some of the abuse allegedly committed by five men arrested in Lafayette County in November for sex crimes against children.  The alleged abuse by the men in the Mohler family is incredibly disturbing (you can read more here); among other things, a key witness in the case says she had an abortion at age 11 1/2. 

Pratt told the committee his bill could prevent similar abuse in the future. 

A tweet from Post-Dispatch reporter Tony Messenger, earlier this evening at a Senate committee hearing on Sen. Rob Mayer's (R-Dexter) SB793: 

Today, Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-Other Universe) introduced HJR 49, a constitutional amendment very similar to the Missouri Roundtable for Life's latest ballot initiative (their 30th in 22 months) that would, in supporters' words, "stop taxpayer funding of abortion, human cloning, and embryonic stem cell research because they all destroy human life."  

Though it's not entirely clear at this point, the Roundtable's endorsement of this new approach may indicate that they're not able or interested in collecting the signatures to put anything on the ballot this year.

Just like the Roundtable ballot initiative it replaces, the language in Davis' proposal would allow lawmakers to withhold public funds to Missouri universities and hospitals to block lawful stem cell research, and could even prevent grants and private foundations from going to institutions like the University of Missouri. 

The Beacon's Jo Mannies bravely attended the How to Take Back America conference yesterday, and helpfully shares outlines a number of the key themes from some of the presenters. Notably:

• The core of the abortion agenda includes an effort to "exterminate an ethnic people."
• "Homosexual behavior will always be destructive, wrong and dangerous."
• Obama is like Hitler.
• Washington stains the soul.

Ironically, Mannies notes, Friday's "biggest cheers" went to Samuel Wurzelbacher (aka Joe the Plumber), who said Washington, DC "stains the soul" and is full of "manipulative" people.  Maybe it's just me, but such statements are downright odd when one considers all of the incumbent and aspiring DC Republicans flocking to the event -- people like Todd Akin, Ed Martin and Vicky Hartzler.