Contact: Amy Philo, UNITE, 214-705-0169, 817-793-8028

WASHINGTON, July 24 /Standard Newswire/ -- Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D – NV) has slipped a controversial bill called The MOTHERS Act into an omnibus package called "Advancing America's Priorities Act" (S. 3297) which is scheduled for a vote July 26. The MOTHERS Act, a bill to screen and treat pregnant and new mothers across the U.S. at risk for mental disorders, has stalled in the Senate HELP committee for months. The abortion rights groups NARAL Pro-Choice America, The Guttmacher Institute, and Planned Parenthood publicly support The MOTHERS Act.

Reid will move to invoke cloture and pass the $11.3 billion omnibus bill this Saturday without debate.

Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R – OK) criticized Reid's plan, stating, "What the staff members are saying is we want to bring a bill, but we don't want to debate it. We don't want to vote on it. We don't want to have it amended. We don't want the American people to know what we would rather do in secret."

Citizens Against Government Waste commented, "If the legislation is worthy of taxpayer money, surely the Senate should have no problem spending time to debate the individual bills."

Ironically, The MOTHERS Act is named for Melanie Stokes, who committed suicide in 2001, following postpartum psychiatric treatment including four separate drug cocktails and electroshock therapy. Many of the groups backing the bill also receive funds from or have high-ranking members working for pharmaceutical companies, or stand to profit from treating troubled women or off of babies needing extensive medical care for birth defects and other complications.

In January 2008, the New England Journal of Medicine published suppressed data from drug companies that proved antidepressants work no better than a placebo. The FDA warned repeatedly that antidepressants double suicides and issued numerous warnings concerning the use of antidepressants during pregnancy. According to data from the FDA MedWatch system, from 2004-2007, an estimated 2,900 babies died via spontaneous abortion because of SSRI antidepressants given to pregnant women. Studies demonstrate that antidepressants double spontaneous abortions and stillbirths and quintuple preterm births. Babies exposed to SSRIs in pregnancy have a six-fold increased risk of persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN), a potentially fatal lung problem. Nearly one third of women who take SSRIs during pregnancy have a baby who dies, is premature or underweight, or who has seizures.

For more on the efforts to stop The MOTHERS Act and the Reid omnibus package (S. 3297), go to www.uniteforlife.org.