Life Advocacy Briefing

Obama Targets DC Preborns

THE WHITE HOUSE LAST WEEK RELEASED ITS BUDGET PLAN for the next fiscal year and, in so doing, initiated a fight we must win.

“[The] White House budget submission,” explained National Right to Life Committee in an NRL news release issued Thursday, “explicitly urges the House and Senate – which the President’s party currently controls with nearly 3/5 majorities – to repeal a law (sometimes called the Dornan Amendment) that has prevented tax-funded abortion in the District of Columbia for many years,” putting the Obama Regime squarely behind taxpayer subsidies of the abortion industry and its most lethal “service.”

The annual DC budget is enacted each year by Congress as a result of Article I of the Constitution which, NRL noted, “says that Congress holds complete legislative authority over the District of Columbia. … For many years,” NRL said, “The annual DC appropriations bill has contained a provision to prevent the use of any Congressionally appropriated funds for abortion (except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest). The White House budget document released [Thursday] (on Appendix page 1209) asks Congress to repeal the ban on the use of Congressionally appropriated funds and replace it with a meaningless bookkeeping requirement that would apply only to funds specifically contributed for federal program purposes.”

NRL’s legislative director Douglas Johnson warned in the news release that if Congress adopts the Obama Regime’s proposed change, “‘the predictable result will be tax funding of several thousand elective abortions annually, including roughly 1,000 abortions annually that would not otherwise occur.

“‘Any Member of Congress who votes for a bill that contains the White House proposal is, in reality, voting for tax-funded abortion-on-demand with Congressionally appropriated funds,’” said Mr. Johnson.

“‘Today’s White House action is one more evidence,’” said Mr. Johnson in the NRL release, “‘that Pres. Obama is trying to pull off a massive policy scam. He generates a smokescreen of soothing rhetoric about seeking “common ground” and “abortion reduction,”’” said Mr. Johnson, “‘while step by step advancing concrete policies that will substantially increase the number of abortions and pay for abortion on demand with everyone’s taxes.’ … The next step, [Mr.] Johnson suggested” in the release, “would be ‘an attempt to smuggle vast expansions of abortion into law through healthcare reform [sic] legislation.’”

Obama Chipping Away at Pro-Life Reforms

THOUGH THE WHITE HOUSE HAS PRESERVED, for now, the Hyde Amendment barring Medicaid funding of abortions with life-of-the-mother and conception-by-sex-crime loopholes, and has left intact the Dickey-Wicker Amendment barring federal funding of the killing of embryonic human beings for experimentation, the President’s budget proposal contains other troubling provisions beyond the DC abortion subsidy. (Oh, he also retains the language of the Hyde/Weldon healthcare conscience protection amendment with this hand while proposing with his other hand to demolish the regulatory framework for its enforcement.)

The appropriations battle is now begun, and readers are urged not only to call their US Representatives – as well as key Members from other districts – but also to pass the word among their friends. These fights are critical to the lives of countless future Americans. (Capitol switchboard: 1-202/224-3121; electronic mail: www.house.gov.)

One budget deform beingproposed by the change agent in the White House is a loosening of language governing the Legal Services Corp., the nation’s system of funding poverty lawyers to aid indigent Americans in civil matters such as family dissolution and landlord/tenant concerns. For years, LSC lawyers – especially in California – were using tax dollars to litigate public policy concerning abortion, in the name of “helping the poor.” After such LSC fund use was barred, some LSC grantees continued to pursue abortion litigation but with other monies. That loophole was closed, and the Obama Regime is now proposing to reopen it.

The White House is proposing also to boost Title X funding by $10 million, to total $317 million. The Title Ten “family planning” program is a chief source of government funding for Planned Parenthood and ought instead to be eliminated altogether.

The Obama team are providing for at least $164 million in funding for educational programs contributing to the sexual delinquency of minors (contraception education), including $50 million in new mandatory condom grants to states, tribes and territories. But the Title V (Five) Abstinence Education Program and the Community-Based Abstinence Education Program (C-BAE) are being eliminated altogether in the Obama budget proposal.

Though the Kemp/Kasten Amendment is retained, language that has been added over the years to aid in its enforcement is being stripped in order to weaken efforts to block the Obama Regime’s investment of our tax dollars in the United Nations Population Fund, notwithstanding UNFPA’s continued involvement in Red China’s forced abortion pogrom.

Public Opinion

A POLL TAKEN IN APRIL SHOWS A STRONG TREND toward opposition to unfettered abortion in America.

Taken by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, the survey of 1,521 Americans was contrasted in the Pew data release with polling of 2,905 Americans last August, when 41% said they “believed abortion should be illegal in most or all cases,” reports the Catholic News Agency (CNA), “while 54% [in August] thought it should be legal in most or all circumstances.”

But in the April polling, Pew found, reports CNA, “44% now believ[e] the killing procedure should be illegal in most or all cases [with] only 46% supporting it being legal. …

“The largest drop in abortion support was found among men,” Pew said, reported by CNA. “In August 2008, 53% of men generally supported legal abortion, while in April 2009, only 43% did. About 46% of men said abortion should generally be illegal,” reports CNA, “an increase of four percentage points since August.”

Left out of the CNA story but of great interest to pro-life advocates was another factor in the Pew poll – the response of 18-to-29-year-olds to the question of legalized abortion. Quoting from Gary Bauer’s May 4 End of Day memo to supporters of his Campaign for Working Families, “Among those aged 18 to 29, 47% favor legal abortion, while 48% oppose it. That represents a shift of five points toward the pro-life view,” Mr. Bauer observes, “since Pew’s August 2008 poll.”

Public Opinion, II

A NATIONAL TELEPHONE SURVEY SHOWS STRONG SUPPORT (64%) for requiring 17-year-olds to consult a parent before using the megadose abortifacient “morning-after pill,” according to the Rasmussen polling organization, reporting on its Internet website www.RasmussenReports.com. Only 30% “do not think it is necessary for 17-year-olds to discuss the pill with a parent first,” reports Rasmussen.

The Food & Drug Administration in April acquiesced to the opinion of a judge that the FDA should drop its requirement for a Plan B prescription, which would necessitate parental involvement for minors, in the case of 17-year-olds.

The survey further measured opinion, reports Rasmussen, on requiring 17-year-olds to “talk to a doctor” before obtaining the controversial drug. On that question, 66% of all adults “think they should be required to talk to a doctor … . [Only] 27% disagree.”

The Rasmussen survey also asked Americans how they view abortion morally; “58% of Americans say abortion is morally wrong most of the time,” reports Rasmussen. “25% disagree.” The “morally wrong” view is even stronger among women, 64% of whom “believe most abortions are morally wrong,” reports Rasmussen, “a view shared by just 51% of men.”

Another significant finding: “Most Americans (52%) now think it is too easy to get an abortion in America,” reports Rasmussen. “That’s up slightly from two years ago,” writes the Rasmussen analyst, “when 45% thought it was too easy.”

Public Opinion, III

ANOTHER MEASUREMENT OF PUBLIC OPINION comes in the form of the responses of American citizens to the pending rescission of the Bush Administration’s Medical Providers’ Right to Conscience regulations.

Sending public comment to the Dept. of Health & Human Services (HHS) during the 30-day official response period were more than 340,000 Americans backing the threatened rules, which provide enforcement mechanisms for the statutes protecting the right of doctors, nurses and other medical personnel to refrain from participation in procedures which offend their consciences, such as committing or referring for abortion.

Quoteworthy

Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, president, Human Life International, in a commentary reprinted by LifeSiteNews.com, referring to Health & Human Services Secretary (and former Kansas governor) Kathleen Sebelius upon her confirmation: “This expert in dealing with swine came on board just in time to handle the flu epidemic before it kills too many people in the United States. She may not realize that abortion kills more Americans in a day than the swine flu will ever kill in this country. Let us pray that she too will get the message that the true epidemic in this country is not swine flu; it’s the killing of children by abortion, and history will remember her role in this modern plague.”

Jack Kemp, R.I.P.

THERE’s A REASON ONE OF THE MOST CRITICAL PRO-LIFE REFORMS over the years has borne the name “Kemp/Kasten Amendment.” That reason is its author, then-US Rep. Jack Kemp (R-NY), who later served as Housing & Urban Development Secretary under Pres. George H.W. Bush and as his party’s vice presidential nominee in 1996. (The “Kasten” part is for the amendment’s Senate sponsor, then-Sen. Bob Kasten [R-WI].)

Former Rep. Kemp passed away last week, succumbing to cancer at the age of 73. He will long be remembered by many as an energetic, passionate advocate for free enterprise solutions to the nation’s economic woes. But to the pro-life community, his memory will bring a smile of gratitude to the man who exposed the United Nations Population Fund’s complicity with Red China’s “one-child” pogrom of forced abortion and involuntary sterilization.

No matter how the current occupant of the White House twists the facts, whitewashes the ugly truth and cheats the taxpayers of this country – as he has done in restoring UNFPA funding, notwithstanding the still effective prohibition in Kemp/Kasten – the truth about the UN’s depopulation outfit and its pals in Beijing will live on.

We thank God for Rep. Jack Kemp and for all he has meant to his countrymen. Our condolences to his wonderful family.

Condoning Coercion & Now Even Kidnapping?

May 6, 2009, PRI Weekly Briefing by Steven Mosher, president, Population Research Institute

[PRI Communication Director] Colin Mason is back from China. His week-long undercover investigation revealed fresh abuses in China’s one-child policy and new proof of the UN Population Fund’s complicity in these abuses. Remember that the UNFPA has been in China since 1979, helping the Beijing authorities to implement the program. Colin visited three counties where the UN Population Fund claims to run “voluntary” family planning programs and found that they were anything but.

What struck me about his investigation, as someone who has been following the policy for three decades, was how the fines for “illegal” children have increased in recent years. The fines for having an illegal child are now three to five times the family’s income. The equivalent fine in the US would be $150,000 to $250,000. Couples have to mortgage their future for decades – literally – in order to be able to borrow enough money to pay off these fines. The government insists on calling this extortion “social compensation fees” – as if the parents were simply defraying the cost to society of another child – but in reality they are heavily punitive. Faced with the prospect of such a fine, many couples “voluntarily” submit to an abortion and sterilization.

What happens if you don’t pay the fine? In Guangxi province, what reportedly happens is that illegal newborns are taken into custody by government officials, who hold the infants until the parents are able to scrape together enough money to pay the huge fine. In other words, the babies are kidnapped and held for ransom! What happens if the parents can’t pay the fine? One can only imagine.

Colin’s findings are consistent with the results of earlier investigations carried out by PRI. In 2001, for example, PRI sent a team of investigators into China to look into the UNFPA’s model family planning program, specifically its claim that forced abortions and forced sterilizations are a thing of the past. While in country, we interviewed over two dozen victims and witnesses of coercion, and videotaped and audiotaped their answers. Those interviewed stated that voluntary family planning does not exist in the UNFPA’s “model” program and that forced abortions continue to occur.

Even the US State Dept., not known for its pro-life sentiments, concurred in 2002 that China’s heavy fines were coercive in nature and that the UNFPA was complicit in this coercion. Presented with our evidence, Pres. Bush did the sensible thing and withheld funding from the UNFPA for seven years, costing the rogue agency some $200 million.

Now along comes Obama. The new President pledged during the campaign to restore funding to the UNFPA. Then on March 11, he signed the 2009 omnibus spending bill, which includes $50 million for the UNFPA. Two weeks later the State Dept. announced the formal resumption of contributions to the UNFPA. And only a few days ago, the US Secretary of State (Hillary Clinton, remember her?) appeared before the US House of Representatives and, in sworn testimony, praised the UN agency, now flush with US cash.

Can the funding be cut off again, now that new evidence of the UNFPA’s complicity with coercion and kidnapping has come to light? Frankly, I don’t know. The anti-life mentality that pervades the new Administration may prove impervious to both facts and reason. But we at PRI will continue to demand that Americans not be forced to fund these abuses.

Furthermore, we will continue to argue that forced abortion should not merely be anathema to pro-lifers. It should be rejected by those on the other side of the abortion debate as well. Human rights groups of all stripes should be urging Pres. Obama to zero out all UNFPA funding. American tax dollars must not be used to fund an organization that violates the basic human rights of women around the world. And apparently condones kidnapping.