As House Republicans take the first step today towards voting on a bill that would repeal the abortion-funding ObamaCare bill pro-life groups oppose, a new Gallup poll finds a plurality of Americans support that effort.

Approximately 46 percent of U.S. voters support the repeal effort, some 40 percent oppose it, and 14 percent say they do not have an opinion yet on repealing the government takeover of the health care industry.

“Americans’ broadly divided opinions on repealing the healthcare legislation are in line with Gallup polling from much of the past two years that showed the bill struggling to gain majority public support both before and shortly after its passage. Polls conducted more recently have shown Americans generally more opposed to than in favor of the healthcare law,” Gallup noted...

The national pro-abortion group NARAL has launched a new campaign designed to build opposition to newly-elected pro-life Speaker John Boehner.

NARAL is urging its activists to take an oath to protect abortion as Boehner, who told Americans United for Life president Charmaine Yoest, he wants to be the most “pro-life speaker in history,” begins his tenure as the leader of the House of Representatives.

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL, said in a statement that Boehner is set to the launch the “fiercest attacks” on abortion “in decades”...

After massive pro-life backlash following the publication of new rules instituting “death panels,” the Obama administration has agreed to remove them from ObamaCare.

The “death panels” caused considerable concern for pro-life groups, which believe they would have given financial incentives to doctors to hold end-of-life discussions with patients that will lead to the rationing of their medical care.

Under the regulations the Obama administration put in place in December, which LifeNews.com was the first to cover, doctors would instruct patients in the annual “voluntary” exams to write “advance directives listing the kind of treatment they wish to receive or not receive if they are unable to make their own medical decisions...

The head of an Ohio-based political action committee is relieved that one Republican will no longer represent his state as the 112th Congress convenes.

Among the new senators sworn in this week will be Ohio Republican Rob Portman, who could be one of the most conservative members of that chamber in the coming years. According to Phil Burress, chairman of the Citizens for Community Values (CCV), Portman is pro-life and pro-business.

"Senator Portman is not only a conservative, but he is also a friend of mine, and I've known him before he even ran for Congress in the first place. So we're going to have a tremendous pro-life, pro-family senator who will be representing us," he reports...

Leaders in the pro-life community are angrily responding to the news that the Obama administration added “death panels” to the ObamaCare implementation.

They are calling on Congress to take steps to repeal the new regulations Obama officials put in place that they worry will give financial incentives to doctors to hold end-of-life discussions with patients that will lead to the rationing of their medical care. Doctors will instruct patients in the annual “voluntary” exams to write “advance directives listing the kind of treatment they wish to receive or not receive if they are unable to make their own medical decisions.

Although the advanced directives apparently can’t be used for facilitate an assisted suicide, there is concern physicians will pressure or persuade patients to make decisions that would ration care or withdraw lifesaving medical treatment...

The pro-life movement has received a significant legislative victory with today’s vote in the Senate passing a Department of Defense funding bill without a change in the policy prohibiting military base abortions.

Earlier this month, the Senate turned back a second attempt by pro-abortion Democrats to stop a Republican filibuster against a Defense Department funding measure that would also allow abortions at military base hospitals.

Subsequently, the House passed a bill, H.R. 6523, that leaves current pro-life law in place and does not contain an amendment offered in the Senate by Senator Roland Burris which would permit the performance of abortions in both domestic and overseas military facilities...

Pro-life advocates in Maryland, Iowa and Indiana are pushing back with rallies and talk of more restrictive legislation as one of the nation's most prominent late-term abortion doctors works to expand his practice in all three states.

Don Dwyer Jr., a Republican member of Maryland's House of Delegates from Anne Arundel County, said this week that he was talking with other pro-life lawmakers about more restrictive legislation in the wake of Dr. LeRoy Carhart's decision to establish an office this week in the Germantown Reproductive Health Services clinic in suburban Montgomery County.

Mr. Dwyer told Southern Maryland Online that the purpose of the talks was to produce a bill "to regulate abortion clinics as they do in many other states." The next session of the Maryland General Assembly begins Jan. 11...

The Senate may vote as early today on the 2011 defense authorization bill that contains language turning military base hospitals into abortion facilities.

The legislation contains the Burris amendment which would overturn longstanding pro-life law prohibiting the performance of abortions at taxpayer-funded military bases.

Earlier this year, a Senate committee approved the amendment sponsored by outgoing Sen. Rolland Burris, an Illinois Democrat. Current law prohibits abortions at the taxpayer-funded base hospitals both in the United States and abroad, but abortion advocates are rallying support for the legislation to overturn it...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a pro-life advocate, says he is more inclined than not to consider a presidential bid in 2012 seeking the GOP nomination against pro-abortion President Barack Obama.

Gingrich says he will probably not make a decision until late February or early March of next year but he says talking to friends and colleagues about a presidential bid is making him lean towards running.

In his comments, in an interview with Fox news Sunday, Gingrich says he sees the potential for winning the nomination and a general election contest against Obama is “doable” but he believes former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who lost the nomination bid to John McCain in 2008, is “probably the front-runner”...

It appears Congress will not likely pass a bill that has had pro-life groups concerned by expanding the decision by President Barack Obama to force Americans to pay for embryonic stem cell research.

Thanks to the significant gains the pro-life movement made in the November elections, the compressed lame duck legislative agenda and the commitment Senate Republicans have made to a filibustering any legislation without a deal on tax cuts in place, the bills look like they won’t move forward.

Two members of the House have been pushing legislation that would expand Obama’s executive order by overturning the 1996 Dickey-Wicker Amendment. That’s a federal law that prohibits federal funds from being used to pay for the destruction of human embryos...