Politics
Thursday November 6, 2008
Payback Time: What Planned Parenthood Expects from Barack Obama
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Commentary by Steven W. Mosher and Colin Mason
November 6, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The decades-long love affair between Barack Obama and Planned Parenthood has reached its political fruition. Obama will soon be ensconced in the Oval Office, with all the people who helped put him there lined up outside for goodies. At the head of the line will be Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. What will they ask for?
The three things that they want from a President Obama are more money for their contraception and sterilization programs, an end to any and all restrictions on abortions, and taxpayer funding, including funding for abortion itself.
Judging by what Obama has said over the course of the campaign, he will be happy to grant their wishes.
First of all, Barack Obama has pledged to pay for abortions with our tax dollars. According to his own web site, he is an original co-sponsor of the "Prevention First Act," which will "increase funding for family planning and comprehensive sex education that teaches both abstinence and safe sex methods. The Act will also end insurance discrimination against contraception, improve awareness about emergency contraception, and provide compassionate assistance to rape victims."
What this reasonable-sounding languages disguises, of course, is the ugly reality that the Prevention First Act would actually force insurance companies to fund, doctors to prescribe, and pharmacies to dispense, abortifacient contraceptives. "Providing compassionate assistance to rape victims," when translated into plain English, means forcing you and I to pay for morning after pills and abortions.
Second, Obama has also promised - in the strongest possible terms - to sign the radical Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which would prohibit the states from "interference with a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability or ... after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman." It would also prohibit so-called "discrimination ... in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information." If passed, the Freedom of Choic Act would nullify any and all restrictions on abortion, from parental consent laws, to waiting periods, to informed consent provisions, and the like. All of the hard work of pro-lifers over the past three decades would be swept away.
Third, and potentially most damaging in the long run, Obama has pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices based on their friendliness to his agenda, and not their qualifications as impartial arbiters of the law. In Obama's own words, he will surely appoint people of like mind, assuring us that he wants to put "people on the bench who have enough empathy, enough feeling for what ordinary people are going through." So much for the Constitution.
As it stands now, the Supreme Court is effectively deadlocked on the Life issues, with Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas as reliable pro-life votes, and Breyer, Ginsburg, Stevens and Souter equally reliably pro-abortion. With at least two justices getting on in years and another reportedly expressing interest in retiring, the next president may have ample opportunity to appoint more than one judge to the land's highest court.
In the face of Obama's expected onslaught against Life what can we do?
Those with pro-life convictions must continue to act on those convictions. We must continue to be a presence outside of abortion centers in order to let women know that there is a "choice" beyond abortion. We must continue to help women who come to our crises pregnancy centers with counseling and baby cribs. We must let our remaining friends in the House and Senate know that we expect them, although outnumbered, to stand and fight for Life. Unless the Party of Abortion can muster 60 votes in the Senate, the Freedom of Choice Act will be a dead letter.
Finally, we must redouble our efforts to expose the abortion movement for what it is: An anti-child, anti-woman movement that has cost America 50 million lives and counting.
(Note: This article first appeared in the Population Research Institute’s newsletter - http://www.pop.org)
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