Media Alert: Americans United for Life in US News & World Report
Americans United for Life recently started a campaign to encourage the public to Fight FOCA through the FightFOCA website.
US News & World Report reports, Abortion Foes Mobilize Against Obama
Activists seek to prevent new administration from reversing Bush administration policies, by Paul Bedard, Posted November 14, 2008
The antiabortion movement is mobilizing its forces to challenge President-elect Barack Obama should he move quickly to restore federal funding of international family planning services and make good his promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, or FOCA.
Americans United for Life has been in the lead on this battle,
Led by Americans United for Life and other antiabortion groups, the movement is gathering signatures to fight FOCA and meeting this weekend to map out a strategy. [Yep, we are here now…]
There are some pundits who feel that Obama will not push for FOCA in his first term. But what is certain is that Obama will not veto any legislation coming out of the Reid-Pelosi legislative machine.
While it is unclear if Obama will move swiftly on the abortion issue, activists on both sides expect him to reverse a Bush executive order implementing the so-called Mexico City language that bars nongovernmental family planning organizations from using federal money to perform abortion services in other countries or to inform patients there about such procedures.
The activists expect that move to propel action in Congress on FOCA, which sets in law a woman’s right to choose and challenges recent Supreme Court rulings on the issue.
According to foes, the new strategy to fight both will seek to capitalize on taxpayer anger at the recent Wall Street bailout.
“Our strategy will be, ‘Do we want to use federal tax dollars to bail out the abortion industry?’ ” says one of the activists working to build a coalition to fight Obama. “Why are we using taxpayer money to fund abortion services overseas?” he said. (However, federal funding has not been used in the past to directly fund abortions overseas.)
Cecile Richards is the president of the one billion dollar Planned Parenthood. Tax dollars indirectly fund Cecil Richards’ $1,000,000 annual salary. The tax payer provides the abortion provider over $300,000,000 each year. Your money. Funds Abortion. Three Hundred Million Dollars.
USN&WR closes,
While it’s an issue that was largely avoided in the presidential campaign, conservatives see it as a key test of which way Obama will move on social issues in his first year.
We Pro-Life conservatives know exactly how Obama will move — he will payback his backers, his buddies. To those he’s beholden. Cecile Richards is first in line.
So who exactly is Cecile Richards, who would deserve this liberal Democrat payback?
Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, contributor to all issues liberal is a very special liberal Democrat.
She is the daughter of liberal Democrat Ann Richards.
Fight FOCAThe fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. And like Eve, Planned Parenthood is coming for a bigger bite of the apple.
Payback is coming to Planned Parenthood.
But the taxpayer, the voter is fighting back.
Fight FOCA.
Thank you (foot)notes,
Your Business Blogger(R) recommends, Obama Transition Team in Lockstep with Planned Parenthood
Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D., is president and CEO of Americans United for Life.
See Our Journey.
Visit Jimmy Akin at FightFOCA.
Jay Anderson, a smart guy from University of Virginia Law School (redundant, I know), Fight FOCA.
25 year-old Chelsea Zimmerman from Holts Summit, Missouri has a perspective on life and on Life well beyond her years. The world is a better place for her blogging.
Ronald L. Caravan has a compelling article in The Valley News Online, Between the Lines: How ironic that Obama action might threaten ‘separation of church and state’ Liberals make little sense…,
In simple terms, under the Freedom of Choice Act, Catholic hospitals would eventually be forced to perform abortions or go out of business, and Catholic bishops this week were signaling that they would go out of business before they would start aborting babies.
“This is not a matter of political compromise,” Bishop Daniel Conlon of Steubenville, Ohio was quoted in news reports. “It’s a matter of absolutes.”
Commenting on Catholic elected officials, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City stated, “They cannot call themselves Catholic when they violate such a core belief as the dignity of the unborn.”
And Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Chicago frankly stated that if Catholic hospitals were given no choice but to perform abortions, they would close rather than comply.
The Freedom of Choice Act is not a brand new proposal. So why the heightened concern now? Because of what President-elect Obama announced at a Planned Parenthood banquet in July of 2007: “The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act…. On this fundamental issue, I will not yield and Planned Parenthood will not yield.”
…
“Freedom of Choice sounds so benign, but people have simply no comprehension of what a radical piece of legislation this is,” stated Daniel McConchie of Americans United for Life. “The bottom line is that if FOCA passes, you’ll have abortion on demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy for any reason in all 50 states and pay for it with our taxes.”…
Unlike the continuous left-leaning efforts to obliterate God from all aspects of public life in the name of “separation of church and state”–which it is not–the Freedom of Choice Act actually does threaten to impose government interference on a church–exactly what Thomas Jefferson promised would not be done when he coined the “separation” phrase in a letter to a church in Danbury, Connecticut so many years ago.
Leave it to the relativistic left to wrongly accuse everyone else of violating a principle, then commit that very sin themselves.
more at the jump.
In simple terms, under the Freedom of Choice Act, Catholic hospitals would eventually be forced to perform abortions or go out of business, and Catholic bishops this week were signaling that they would go out of business before they would start aborting babies.
“This is not a matter of political compromise,” Bishop Daniel Conlon of Steubenville, Ohio was quoted in news reports. “It’s a matter of absolutes.”
Commenting on Catholic elected officials, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City stated, “They cannot call themselves Catholic when they violate such a core belief as the dignity of the unborn.”
And Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Chicago frankly stated that if Catholic hospitals were given no choice but to perform abortions, they would close rather than comply.
The Freedom of Choice Act is not a brand new proposal. So why the heightened concern now? Because of what President-elect Obama announced at a Planned Parenthood banquet in July of 2007: “The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act…. On this fundamental issue, I will not yield and Planned Parenthood will not yield.”
It doesn’t look much like the Catholic Church is about to yield on the issue, either, nor should it. It is sufficient that Catholic leaders are standing on fundamental principle against murder of the unborn; they are also standing more closely to the sensibilities of the American people than the Freedom of Choice Act. According to a recent Marist College poll, a third of Americans believe abortion should be allowed only in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother; a quarter believe it should be allowed only in the first three months of a pregnancy; and only 8 percent favor unrestricted access to abortion.
“Freedom of Choice sounds so benign, but people have simply no comprehension of what a radical piece of legislation this is,” stated Daniel McConchie of Americans United for Life. “The bottom line is that if FOCA passes, you’ll have abortion on demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy for any reason in all 50 states and pay for it with our taxes.”
The Catholic Church has now dug in its heels on the issue, and is communicating its clear position to the incoming administration. With over 550 Catholic hospitals and 415 clinics nationwide serving 90 million Americans, and providing billions to assist the disadvantaged get needed health care, the church would seem to be in a strong position to fight against federal legislation that would allow the government to trump the faith commitment of the church.
Unlike the continuous left-leaning efforts to obliterate God from all aspects of public life in the name of “separation of church and state”–which it is not–the Freedom of Choice Act actually does threaten to impose government interference on a church–exactly what Thomas Jefferson promised would not be done when he coined the “separation” phrase in a letter to a church in Danbury, Connecticut so many years ago.
Leave it to the relativistic left to wrongly accuse everyone else of violating a principle, then commit that very sin themselves.
You’re wasteing your money. FOCA will never pass. It’s a publicity stunt, that’s all – like the constitutional ban on gay marriage, it’s something which must be attempted visibly to appease a base but which is far too unpopular with everyone else to clear congress.