The battle to stop all federal taxpayer funding of abortions, and to ensure the Obamacare health care reform law does not allow abortion funding, starts in hearings in the House next week.

Two House committees will hear two of the billsthat are the highest items on the priority list for pro-life organizations: the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act sponsored by pro-life Reps. Chris Smith and Dan Lipinski and the Protect Life Act, sponsored by pro-life Rep. Joe Pitts.

The Smith-Lipinski bill would compile all of the annual provisions that prevent federal funding of abortions into one piece of legislation. The beauty of the bill lies in its ability to make what are annual battles to stop abortion funding permanent federal law.

An expert on government relations at The Heritage Foundation isn't surprised that a repeal of ObamaCare failed in the Senate, but he did think one or two Democrats might cross the aisle and side with Republicans.

Wednesday's vote was 51-47 in favor of the Democrats, who remained in control of the Senate after the mid-term election. In response, Republicans say the vote forced Democrats to go on the record in favor of the healthcare overhaul -- and launched what they described as a two-year effort to discredit it as President Obama bids for a second term.

Brian Darling at The Heritage Foundation says he expected one or two Democrats would side with Republicans on yesterday's vote, based on the lack of support from the American people and the recent federal ruling in Florida that ObamaCare is unconstitutional...

A former director of the Congressional Budget Office disputes claims from the agency that repealing ObamaCare would add billions to the national deficit.

The non-partisan CBO has stated that repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. "ObamaCare") would increase the deficit by $230 billion over the coming decade, and even more in the decade to follow. But former CBO director and current president of the American Action Forum, Dr. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, says repeal would not add to the deficit.

"The Congressional Budget Office came to its conclusion by using the rules that Congress forces it to use," he explains. "In particular, the CBO is forced to assume that everything in the law will happen exactly the way it's written down -- even when it's not politically plausible"...

Supporters of ObamaCare might consider it just a bump in the road -- critics, however, likely view it as more of a huge pothole.

Another federal judge has said no to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("ObamaCare"), declaring the individual mandate contained within it unconstitutional. In Pensacola yesterday, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled not only that it is wrong to require people to buy healthcare insurance, but also that that provision makes the entire law unconstitutional...

The Senate may vote as early as this week on legislation that would repeal the Obamacare law that contains abortion and rationing concerns of pro-life groups. The vote would come on the heels of a ruling by a federal judge declaring the law unconstitutional.

Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said today the Senate may vote on the House-passed legislation this week, putting on Twitter: “Vote on health care repeal could come as early as this week in the Senate.”

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, both of whom are pro-life, have led the way in the effort to repeal the Obamacare legislation. last week, McConnell started the process of attempting to get the Senate to repeal the law by employing a Senate rule typically reserved for party leaders that allows them to bypass committee action on legislation and place the bill directly before the Senate...

As pro-lifers return from this week’s March for Life in Washington, DC, there exist plenty of reasons for optimism.

In recent years pro-lifers have made impressive gains in the court of public opinion. These gains have been the largest among America’s youth and the media reports of the March will undoubtedly express surprise at the number of students who were in attendance. Furthermore, even though recent statistics indicate that abortions increased slightly in 2008, the overall numbers have dropped by nearly 25 percent since the early 1990s. These are all good signs. Unfortunately, amidst all this sunny news, one development from 2010 has the ability to undermine much of the hard fought progress the pro-life movement has made since the Roe v. Wade decision. That is, of course, this last spring’s passage of Obamacare...

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) says he is not yet sure how House Republicans will go about defunding Obamacare if the effort to enact legislation fully repealing the legislation ultimately fails, as it is expected to given that it would require passing the Democrat-controlled Senate and then the signature of President Obama to become law.

“There have been some discussions (with House leadership), but I haven’t gone into it deeply enough that I’d be willing to represent it publicly,” King said about the effort to defund Obamacare. “Those are conversations that need to take place.”

King said that the entire focus for the last few days has been on the repeal legislation, but that attempts to defund Obamacare would follow that...

With the House having approved a bill to repeal the abortion-funding ObamaCare bill, pressure is now on the Senate to do so — although Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid doesn’t plan to allow a vote.

On a 245-189 vote, the House voted for the bill to repeal the law that had the federal government essentially taking over the health care industry and putting a program in place that prompted significant concerns about abortion funding and rationing. The vote received support from all Republicans and three Democrats.

Senator Mitch McConnell said he hoped the Senate would somehow be forced to “follow suit”...

(CNSNews.com) - More than half of the states—27 out of 50—are now challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare in federal court.

Six additional states--Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, Wisconsin and Wyoming--petitioned in federal court on Tuesday to join Florida’s law suit challenging the constitutionality of the health care law President Barack Obama signed last March. Nineteen states had previously joined with Florida in this suit, making the total number of states that are now a party to the suit 26.

Virginia, which has filed its own lawsuit against Obamacare, is the 27th state challenging the constitutionality of the health-care law in federal court. (A complete list of all 27 states appears at the bottom of this story)...

The day before the House of Representatives is slated to vote for legislation to repeal the Obamacare health care law, new polling data shows Americans continue to support repeal, or at least scaling back the measure.

“Support for repeal of the national health care law passed last year remains steady, as most voters continue to believe the law will increase the federal budget deficit,” pollster Scott Rasmussen said yesterday in talking about a new national poll his firm released.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows 55 percent of likely voters favor repeal of the health care law, while 40% oppose repeal. Some 40 percent of likely voters strongly favor repeal while 30 percent are strongly opposed — showing passion remains on the pro-repeal side...