Abortion

Abortion-rights advocates plan to deliver petitions with more than 130,000 signatures Thursday opposing a congressional investigation of Planned Parenthood.

The group CREDO Action plans to deliver the petitions to Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), the chairman of the Energy and Commerce oversight subcommittee. Stearns, along with other GOP leaders on the committee, recently launched an investigation into Planned Parenthood.

Stearns requested a slew of data from Planned Parenthood, ranging from financial information to policies for reporting illegal activity.

“Anti-choice members of Congress are using this investigation to launch yet another attack on Planned Parenthood,” said Becky Bond, political director of CREDO Action.   “If they can't defund the organization, they want to tie up its staff and resources in a politically motivated investigation. This is an unfair and unjust political assault, and we can't let them win.”

House Democrats have also blasted Stearns' investigation. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on Energy and Commerce, called it an inappropriate use of the panel's oversight authority.

The anti-abortion-rights group Susan B. Anthony List and anti-same-sex marriage group National Organization for Marriage released their presidential campaign scorecards Friday morning ahead of the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit.

All the GOP presidential candidates — with the exception of former Utah governor Jon Huntsman — are scheduled to appear at the event in Washington, D.C., on either Friday and Saturday.

All of the candidates except Herman Cain and Mitt Romney signed the SBA List's pro-life pledge, while all of the candidates besides Cain, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul signed NOM's pledge to defend traditional marriage.

The candidates with unblemished records on both issues, according to the groups, are Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Michele Bachmann, the three candidates who, along with Cain, are most seriously vying for the support of social conservatives.

NOM's president said he believes his group's issue will play a large role in the campaign.

"Given the fact that all of the main presidential candidates have signed our marriage pledge, which is a very strong pledge, clearly this election 2012, social issues are going to be very important," he told The Hill on the eve of the vote's release. "There's been an attempt to downplay them in much of the media."

Perry has strugggled somewhat with that group since his campaign launched because of mandate as governor of Texas that teenage girls get a vaccine against a sexually transmitted disease known to cause cervical cancer. He needs to have a strong performance Friday at the summit in order to woo some of the movement's leaders towards his campaign.

Download the scorecards here.

Josh Lederman contributed.

Ron Paul on Thursday slammed President Obama’s move to mandate that healthcare plans include birth control in a list of preventive services that would be covered as free, saying in a news release that the president made a “mockery” of the concerns of Christian conservatives.

“I am deeply troubled by the flippancy with which President Obama recently discussed regulations that are alarming and troublesome for many Americans,” said Rep. Paul (R-Texas). “Not all Americans are comfortable with the Obama administration’s decision to mandate coverage of birth control and morning-after pills, and the considerations of these people, many of them Christian conservatives, are worthy of careful consideration — not mockery.”

Late last month, a coalition of Catholic colleges and universities asked the administration to repeal the decision, or create an exemption for religiously affiliated healthcare providers. Though the bill includes an exception for “religious institutions that offer insurance to their employees,” Catholic groups have said that the provision does not allow enough leeway.

Members call the decision “improper, irregular ... and in absolute disregard of the sovereignty of the State of New Hampshire.”

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee charged Tuesday that the panel’s Republican leaders are investigating Planned Parenthood for purely political reasons.

The Oversight subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) recently requested a series of records from Planned Parenthood. Stearns’s Sept. 15 letter to the organization asked for financial records, such as any reports of improper billing, while also asking what policies the clinics have in place for reporting suspected rape and sex trafficking.

Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) criticized the investigation Tuesday in a letter to Stearns, noting that it follows legislative attempts to cut off federal funding to Planned Parenthood.

Opponents of human embryonic stem-cell research asked a federal appeals court to reverse a judge's ruling that the U.S. may continue to fund experiments in the field, Bloomberg reports.

Lawmakers' bid to hit providers with Medicare and Medicaid cuts without harming patients is no easy fix, writes The New York Times.

California lawmakers are mulling stronger vaccine regulations, The Associated Press reports.

Employers are shifting disability coverage costs onto their workers, the same pattern that has emerged with medical insurance, reports Kaiser Health News.

Medical practices cut general operating expenditures 2.2 percent in 2010 in anticipation of sharp cuts, according to the Medical Group Management Association. The group warns that's not always a good thing.

World leaders at the first-ever United Nations General Assembly meeting on chronic diseases pledged to take wide-ranging action to prevent millions of deaths from cancer, diabetes and heart and lung disease by tackling the key causes — smoking, excessive drinking, lack of exercise and unhealthy diets, The Associated Press reports.

Computers that scan doctors' notes can help reduce dangerous complications after surgery, says the Veterans Affairs Department.

Planned Parenthood claimed victory Friday after a federal appeals court struck down a South Dakota law requiring doctors to tell pregnant women that an abortion would increase their risk of committing suicide.

The 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the requirement violates doctors’ 1st Amendment rights. It would require doctors to make “untruthful and misleading” statements, the court stated.

“Planned Parenthood has always stood for the right of women to make these decisions, and we are gratified by this result,” said Sarah Stoesz, president of Planned Parenthood South Dakota.

The court, however, ruled against Planned Parenthood on several other counts. South Dakota’s law also requires doctors to tell pregnant women that their fetuses are living people, and that they have a legal relationship with the fetus. The 8th Circuit upheld those requirements.

Perry's decision strengthens his hand with conservative voters while drawing attention to front-runner Mitt Romney's decision not to sign on.

The Susan B. Anthony List on Thursday filed an appeal in its lawsuit over claims that the healthcare reform law provides government funding for abortion.

Former Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio) sued SBA List for defamation after the group tried to buy billboards that accused him of supporting government-funded abortion through healthcare reform. SBA List sought to have the suit dismissed and also said Ohio's election laws are an unconstitutional limit on free speech.

Earlier this month, a federal judge dismissed SBA List's constitutional challenge and allowed Driehaus's suit to proceed. In the process, the judge said the reform law plainly does not provide government funding for abortion.

"The express language of the (healthcare law) does not provide for tax-payer funded abortion. That is a fact, and it is clear on its face," the ruling stated.

SBA List on Thursday appealed the constitutional question to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and began the process of seeking an appeal on the lower court's decision to let Driehaus's suit go forward.

“The idea that a judge would take it upon himself to police speech, specifically statements on a position taken by the majority of the U.S. House of Representatives, The Congressional Research Service, the Catholic Church, and the entire pro-life movement, shakes our Constitutional foundation. It is as if we woke up in the middle of Orwell's 1984,” SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a release.

The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday filed suit to block a Kansas law restricting access to insurance coverage for abortion.

Kansas law prohibits comprehensive insurance policies from covering abortion, except to save the life of a pregnant woman. Abortion coverage can be purchased separately, but the ACLU says it’s not available to all women.

“This law is part of a nationwide trend to take away insurance coverage for a legal medical procedure that is an important part of basic healthcare for women,” said Brigitte Amiri, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. “Many things can happen in a pregnancy that are beyond a woman’s control, so having insurance coverage for abortion ensures that every woman can get the health care she may need.”