Abortion Debate Still Tangled in Bankruptcy Bill

[NVMojo]

(Medical bankruptcies are one of the main reasons someone files. Frist's family legacy came from for-profit healthcare chains)

WASHINGTON — When Randall Terry filed for bankruptcy in 1998, he probably had little idea he was setting in motion a series of events that years later would entangle a congressional push to rewrite bankruptcy laws with a seemingly unrelated issue: abortion.

Terry, the founder of the antiabortion group Operation Rescue who led high-profile protests against abortion clinics in the 1980s and '90s, said he was filing for bankruptcy to avoid paying court damages resulting from his confrontational tactics.

"I will never let a cent of my money be seized to support the killing of the unborn," he was quoted as saying in news reports and court documents.

Six years later, in a legacy of those sometimes violent clashes over abortion clinic access, the fate of a much-debated bankruptcy bill may depend on whether Congress considers it appropriate for antiabortion protesters to file for bankruptcy to avoid paying fines.

Overhauling the bankruptcy code is the top item on the Senate's agenda as Congress reconvenes Monday after a week's recess. It is one of the changes to the legal system that Republicans are eager to pass before plunging into thornier debates over Social Security and spending bills.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has set aside this week to debate the bill. "I would like to … move to bankruptcy if at all possible. We got very, very close last year," Frist said this month.

more...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bankrupt28feb28,1,6187269,print.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

[Malva Zebrina]

1. Is Randall Terry still active

in high profile activity re abortion?

Haven't seen him around since he divorced his wife who is ill with multiple sclerosis and left his children to marry a much younger and prettier woman.


Passing this would give incentive to more high profile harrassment and violence against women and doctors as it would give Terry and others like him a free pass to continue on unfettered.

[ananda]

2. amoral minority

So Terry has joined the ranks of the amoral minority of rightwing leaders and officials who have no honor when it comes to sex and marriage.. what else is news?

[noonwitch]

3. I am so sick of these moral scumbags preaching about morals

I've lived a moral life, even by their standards, except that I'm not born-again. The older I get, the more I consider my ethics and improve my life and work according to those standards. How dare people like Terry Randall or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell preach to me about morals, when they have no moral standing whatsoever.

I always find it particularly ironic when these guys say that homosexuality is somehow damaging to american families, when a guy like Randall makes such a mockery of marriage. Janet Reno was so right to apply RICO laws to Operation Rescue-now they're bankrupt!

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. They need to rename their group

'Operation Interfere With Women's Health Care'

[athenap]

6. amen!

If they were really "Operation Rescue" why not open their doors to unwanted newborns. Life to them begins at conception and becomes irrelevant after birth.

[NVMojo]

5. such jerks these moralists are in reality.

[la la]

7. schiavo case?

Isn't Terry now involved with the Schiavo case?