Missouri Roundtable For Life had a great deal of success during the just completed 2009 Legislative Session. First, MRFL helped pass the budget by clarifying that the Legislature can restrict tax dollars from going to abortion services and human cloning. Second, MRFL was pleased that our Taxpayer Protection Amendment was successfully filed in both the House and Senate and will be a priority in 2010. Finally, MRFL is gratified that Judge Callahan dismissed the Redmond case. To read more about these developments, visit our latest press release.

This morning, Missouri Roundtable For Life received the Order and Judgment from Cole County Circuit Court Judge Patricia Joyce regarding the first of four counts in Missouri Roundtable For Life v. Carnahan, case no. 09AC-CC00063, which is the case MRFL filed in response to Secretary Robin Carnahan’s abuse of power in re-writing and politicizing MRFL’s “Taxpayer Protection Amendment.” To read more about the case visit our Newsroom as well as our latest press release.

While Judge Patricia Joyce ruled in favor of Carnahan on the first count of our suit, MRFL will continue to pursue the remaining four counts.

April 6, 2009

Hon. Charles E. Johnson
Acting Secretary
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Avenue S.W.
Washington, D.C., 20201

Re: Rescission Proposal

Dear Acting Secretary Johnson:

On behalf of Missouri Roundtable For Life, a Missouri pro-life organization dedicated to protecting the most vulnerable in our society, I am writing you to object to the proposed reversal of the “Provider Refusal Rule.” The extension of the “conscience clause” to protect the rights of health-care professionals to refuse to perform procedures and services that violate their religious and moral beliefs is an important protection of freedom of conscience and religion.

The daily burdens on our health-care professionals in performing their critical and important duties are great. Requiring these hard-working individuals to set-aside their religious and moral beliefs in their mandatory performance of services they deem morally and ethically wrong would undermine the very freedoms our founding fathers fought so hard to establish and protect. Government does not have the right to impose its own conscience on our health-care professionals. Each of our health-care professionals must have the right to exercise their own moral judgment in making life and death decisions on a daily basis. Without that individual right to act on one’s own moral and religious belief would violate every tenet of who we are as Americans.

Missouri Roundtable For Life strenuously urges you to withdraw the planned reversal of the “Provider Refusal Rule.” Freedom of conscience and religion demand it.

Sincerely,

Fred N. Sauer

Chairman of the Board of Directors,
Missouri Roundtable For Life

Statement of Fred N. Sauer, Chairman of Missouri Roundtable For Life Board of Directors, regarding Governor Tim Kaine’s recent actions to protect taxpayer dollars:

We are delighted that current Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and current Governor of Virginia Tim Kaine, who is a Missouri native, has signed into law a bill that prevents taxpayer dollars from being spent on research using human tissue derived from abortions or using stem cells derived from the destruction of human embryos.

We believe that this confirms the bipartisan wisdom of preventing taxpayer dollars from being spent on activities that destroy human life. We encourage the Missouri legislature to protect Missouri public funds in same way by placing the Taxpayer Protection Amendment on the ballot, which would ensure that public funds are not spent on abortion services, human cloning, and other research that destroys human embryos.

The citizens and taxpayer of Missouri deserve this protection.

NPR has an interesting article on its website. Some states are re-thinking their committment to using state tax dollars to fund embryonic stem cell research. To read more, go to NPR’s website.

Welcome to the all new redesigned www.moroundtable.org.  We hope you like our new website design, and would like to take this opportunity to point out some upgrades we’re working on. One is an Upcoming Events, here you’ll find all the important upcoming events related to our struggle. Another is the Invite a Friend page, that will let you send an email from our website to your friends and families letting them know about our site and inviting them to visit us.  Also new is the email newsletter sign up, that we added so you can  sign up for an email newsletter from us.  We’ve also re-organized our old pages, we think you’ll find the new site much easier to browser through and easier to find what you want.