The pro-life movement has been concerned for a number of years about the ties between the Girl Scouts and the Planned Parenthood abortion business. Now, another web site has been launched to track the Girl Scouts’ ties to the abortion agenda.

Those ties prompted the launch of MyGirlScoutCouncil.com, that documents specific concerns on a council-by-council basis with a comprehensive approach.

Although the Girl Scout organization maintains that it takes “no position” on the issue of abortion, parents, churches, and pro-life activists have long complained of the pro-abortion slant of the Girl Scouts’ resources, role models, and affiliations. The new parent-driven website is the creation of Ann Saladin, who was a featured presenter on this topic at the June 2013 National Right to Life Convention.

Saladin pulled her own daughter, a 4th generation Girl Scout, out of her parish troop after discovering financial and ideological links between the Girl Scouts and organizations and individuals who advocate for reproductive rights.

“I wish a resource like this had been available when I was first contemplating my own daughter’s Girl Scout membership,” Saladin explained to LifeNews. “I had no idea that her membership, and the financial contributions solicited through her council, were supporting the international scouting organization, WAGGGS, which aggressively pushes for sexual and reproductive health and rights for girls around the world while representing its 10 million members.”

Saladin hopes the website will spur greater accountability and transparency by Girl Scouts USA.

“Parents have a right to know where their money goes and what messages the Girl Scouts are sending to, and on behalf of, their daughters,” she says.

Pam Fichter, president of Missouri Right to Life, which recently released their own policy statement of concern about the Girl Scouts, welcomes this new resource.

“We have found that providing specific, documented examples of the numerous pro-life concerns about the Girl Scouts to be an effective means to inform our local community. MyGirlScoutCouncil.com highlights current and verifiable pro-life concerns that apply directly to families and communities across the country,” she told LifeNews.

MyGirlScoutCouncil.com provides a valuable tool for parents, clergy, and pro-lifers by meticulously documenting how local councils specifically connect girl members throughout the United States to concerning activities, resources, funding, and affiliations.

The web site documents the Girl Scouts’ involvement in the May, 2013 Women Deliver Conference, an international event that included “safe and legal abortion” among its overarching themes. It documents its role in the planning and facilitating of the December, 2012 Bali Global Youth Forum and the outcome declaration, which demands youth access to abortion.

It notes how GSUSA’s Journey curriculum series promotes women (Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, and Dolores Huerta among others) and organizations (such as WAGGGS, Amnesty International, Population Council, and the ACLU) that publically advocate for abortion. Every local council uses and sells the Journeys series to their girl members.

The web site also chronicles how local councils honor women politicians and activists who advocate for abortion rights, and promote additional concerning organizations and content to girl members.

In an upcoming Supreme Court case, the Obama administration is supporting the right of a municipal government to begin their meetings in prayer, even if most of those prayers are specifically Christian.

In Town of Greece vs. Galloway, which the Court will hear in its next term, a small New York town, Town of Greece, was sued by residents for beginning their town council meeting in prayer, arguing that the prayers violated the Constitutional requirement that government may not respect an establishment of religion. A district court sided with Town of Greece, which the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit later overturned.

In an Amicus brief filed this week, the Department of Justice backed Town of Greece in the dispute, arguing that it is that the government does not have the authority to regulate the content of the prayers.

The Supreme Court has previously upheld, the brief notes, prayers at legislative sessions. The Justice Department points out that as far back as the Continental Congress in 1774, chaplains have opened legislative sessions in prayer. The practice continues today in Congress and other legislative bodies across the country.

The Second Circuit declared the Town of Greece prayers unconstitutional, though, because they were mostly Christian prayers, making specific references to Jesus or the Trinity. This type of prayer is not allowed, it argued, because the Supreme Court has said that such government sponsored prayers may not advance a single religious sect.

The Justice Department’s brief argues that the appeals court decision was wrong because it requires the government to police the content of prayers.

“The unbroken history of the offering of prayer in Congress, for example, has included a large majority of Christian prayer-givers and a substantial number of prayers with identifiably sectarian references,” the brief states. “Neither federal courts nor legislative bodies are well suited to police the content of such prayers, and this Court has consistently disapproved of government interference in dictating the substance of prayers.”

Three more local affiliates of the Planned Parenthood abortion business are getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funding from the federal government to promote Obamacare.

The new grants the HHS department announced today follow one from the Washington, D.C. Obamacare exchange earlier this week.

As Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner reports:

President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services announced on Thursday that it had made grants totaling about $655,000 to three different branches of abortion provider Planned Parenthood so that the groups could help Americans sign up for health coverage through Obamacare.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said her department had doled out $67 million in grants to 105 different organizations seeking to be “navigators” who will help individuals apply for coverage to be offered starting Oct. 1 through new health insurance exchanges.

Among the grants listed were $295,604 for Planned Parenthood of Montana; $214,427 for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland; and $145,161 for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.

When Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, known more commonly as Obamacare, pro-life groups warned that abortion funding would be a component of the health care reform law.

Now, the beginning of that funding is coming to pass as the Obamacare exchange in Washington, D.C. announced this week it is sending $375,000 in taxpayer funds to the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

Obamacare exchanges will operate in all 50 states and a majority of states do not have laws passed that would stop abortion funding or sending taxpayer funds via Obamacare to the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

Enrollment in the exchanges is to begin on October 1, 2013, and the exchanges are to offer health insurance coverage to an estimated 7 million individuals starting on January 1, 2014 (increasing to about 24 million by 2022). Thirty-four states have elected to not set up their own exchanges; therefore, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will operate the exchanges in those states.

Under the ACA, health plans that provide abortion coverage are permitted to participate in the state exchanges. While states are allowed to enact laws “opting out” of permitting insurance plans that cover abortions to participate in their exchanges, many states are unable or unwilling to do so. To date, only 20 states have enacted an opt-out law, citizens.

Americans in states without opt-out laws who are enrolled through an exchange in insurance plans that cover abortion—even if their enrollment is inadvertent or as a consequence of their employment— will be required to pay an “abortion premium” that will be used exclusively to pay for abortions.

Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan D.C. is the abortion business where staffers admitted they handled medications improperly and it also botched an abortion and left part of the baby inside the mother.

From an abortion facility inspection report last year:

“Employee #6 stated, ‘I mix the medications, apply a label and take the vials to the procedure room for the physician to draw up and inject into the patient prior to the procedure. They are used for numbing the cervix.’ Employee #6 was asked who verified the medications she was mixing and she stated, ‘No one.’ While observing the medications being mixed Employee #6 was observed cleaning the tops of the vials prior to the first puncture of each vial. She did not clean the tops prior to the second puncture of the vials. Employee #6 stated, ‘The current research says it doesn’t make any difference. You could lick the tops of the vials and the infection rate would be the same.’”

A Pennsylvania county’s choice to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in spite of the state ban on gay marriage “risks causing serious and limitless harm,” Governor Tom Corbett’s office said in legal filings on Monday.

Attorneys for the state’s Health Department and Gov. Corbett filed a legal claim Monday against D. Bruce Hanes, the register of wills for Montgomery County, who has been illegally distributing marriage licenses to same-sex couples for the past several weeks. Since he began, Hanes has issued 116 same-sex marriage licenses in spite of the state’s 1996 statute defining marriage as being between one man and one woman.

In Monday’s legal filing, Gov. Corbett’s office argued that Hanes is blatantly violating state law, and as a public official he cannot breech a law simply because he personally believes it to be unconstitutional. Rather, the legal brief asserts that it is the responsibility of the courts to determine a law unconstitutional.

“Ours is a government of laws, not one of public officials exercising their will as they believe the law should be or will be,” the legal brief stated, warning that Hanes and other county officials may be guilty of one misdemeanor for each act of breaking the law.

The governor’s legal team also argued in a statement last week that the county’s breach of state law could cause limitless “administrative and legal chaos,” including same-sex couples illegally filing for state benefits. The goal of Corbett’s lawsuit is to have Montgomery County cease issuing same-sex marriage licenses.

Hanes began issuing the licenses shortly after the state’s attorney general Kathleen Kane stated that she would not be defending the 1996 ban on same-sex marriage in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which is seeking to have the state legalize same-sex marriage. Kane, a democrat, said in a press conference that because she felt the 1996 ban to be unconstitutional, she could not ethically defend the law.

Gov. Corbett’s office responded to Kane’s announcement in a similar way it has responded to Hanes’ actions, saying that her choice to not defend state law creates “confusion” in the courts, adding that her failure to defend the state was an “improper usurpation of the role of the courts, which at a minimum, causes confusion among those charged with administering the law.” Corbett’s office has now taken on the responsibility of defending the ban in court; the governor has previously voiced his opposition to same-sex marriage.

Hanes, who controls the distribution of marriage licenses in Montgomery County, has vowed to continue distributing licenses to same-sex couples until he is ordered by the court to stop. He has previously cited the Attorney General’s decision to not defend the gay marriage ban in court as a justification for his actions.

Hanes wrote in an Op-Ed for the Main Line Times that after consulting with his solicitor, Michael Clarke, relying on his own analysis of the law, and following the lead of Kane, he decided to “come down on the right side of history and the law” and issue same-sex marriage licenses.

Lawyers for Montgomery County told the Associated Press Monday that they had just received the governor’s legal brief and were going to review it before responding to the media. The county has until Aug. 19 to file a response.

ST PAUL, Minn. — The state’s new health insurance market place, known as MNsure, is the target of a political campaign aimed at steering consumers away from it.

A billboard asking people to refuse MNsure has gone up on Snelling Avenue near the State Fairgrounds, and it will remain there throughout the event that draws millions to the neighborhood.

The outdoor ad was produced by the Citizens Council for Health Freedom, an organization that has opposed the Affordable Care Act from its inception.

“We look at the exchange as the Achilles heel of ObamaCare,” Twila Brace, the council’s executive director, told KARE Monday.

“And we know if the Exchange does not move forward, neither will ObamaCare, so that is why our focus is on stopping the exchange through lack of enrollment.”

Mnsure will be the portal used by roughly 300,000 uninsured or under insured Minnesotans and small businesses to comparison shop for health coverage, and utilize subsidies and credits provided through the ACA.

“You’ll see what the full premium is and then you’ll see what the discount is that’s associated with the tax credit that you’re eligible for at the time you’re purchasing your plans,” April Todd-Malmlov, the executive director of MNsure, told KARE.

“You’ll be able to see that before you buy.”

Enrollment begins formally on Oct. 1, but the public will gets its first look at the plans being offered through MNsure on Sept. 6. Coverage in those plans will begin Jan. 1.

People already receiving subsidized health insurance, such as Medical Assistance and Minnesota Care, will be able to apply for those programs through MNsure.

Most people will enroll online, but there will be in-person enrollment available as well. The exchange will also feature assistants and “navigators” to help walk people through the process.

“We’re really trying to make it as easy as possible for individuals to get health care coverage and trying to reach them and to encourage them to get the coverage that they need,” Todd-Malmlov explained.

Those who now can buy health coverage through a large employer group plan, and those on Medicare, won’t buy their coverage through the exchange.

They will receive proof-of-insurance forms that will be submitted to the IRS as part of their 2014 tax returns to show they’re complying with the new individual mandate that begins Jan. 1.

The opposition billboard depicts a young woman with her arms crossed and asks passing motorists the question, “Why can’t I choose my OWN doctor?”

It creates the impression that people who enroll in a health plan offered through MNsure won’t have say over who their medical provider will be. A similar message was posed in anti-reform TV ads run by the conservative group Americans for Prosperity.

Brace said the message of the billboard is based on the assumptions that the health insurance plans sold through MNsure will have very limited provider networks. In most health plans customers who receive care out of network are charged a higher deductible or copayment.

“Essential exchanges have policies with narrow networks so that you may not get the doctor you want,” Brace asserted.

“You may not be able to get the hospital that you want.”

But those plans and provider networks won’t be known until after Sept 6, so nobody can say at this time if those buying coverage through MNsure will have to change physicians.

MNsure’s Todd-Malmlov called the billboard campaign flat out misleading.

“It’s unfortunate if misinformation like that is dissuading or discouraging families and small businesses from getting the coverage they need,” she said.

“Really, that type of information is inaccurate.”

She also noted that many of those gaining coverage through the exchange will be picking doctors for the first time because they haven’t had insurance of any kind.

MNsure is beginning to ramp up its public profile and out-of-home advertising to make people aware of the changes coming to the state as well as the opportunities available to purchase coverage.

MNsure will also have a presence at the State Fair, with exhibit space.

Todd-Malmlov has hosted a series of Twitter and online question and answer sessions under the hash tag of #AskApril.

(Copyright 2013 by KARE. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, redistributed or reiterated.)