By Peter J. Smith
WASHINGTON, D.C., December 11, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The US Senate is poised to approve a must-pass spending bill, which allows the District of Columbia to subsidize abortions and gives abortion-advocacy groups overseas, including the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), access to millions of dollars related to “family planning.”
The omnibus appropriations bill, the Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 3288), passed by the House of Representatives on Thursday 221-202, with one abstention. The measure funds the operations of the federal government, but has many anti-life provisions which provoked pro-life Democrats to join with House Republicans in trying to vote it down.
Although language in the bill states that “federal” funds cannot be used to subsidize abortions, the $447 billion spending measure now empowers the D.C. local government to allocate federal funds appropriated for its operating budget to pay for the elective abortions of poor women.
During the previous fiscal years between 1996-2009, Congress prohibited the District of Columbia from funding abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or threat to the life of the mother in its budget through the Dornan Amendment. That measure supplemented abortion-funding restrictions not covered by the Hyde Amendment, which applies only to the annual Labor, Heath and Human Services bill.
The Senate has now moved to consider the House bill in order to send it to President Obama for approval as quickly as possible. Thirty-five pro-life lawmakers, led by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C), told Senate Democrats that they would attempt to block the bill.
Nevertheless, this morning the Senate roundly rejected those efforts, by voting 60-36 to waive points of order intended to delay consideration of the bill.
A final vote could come as soon as Saturday.
Mary Harned, a health-policy expert for Americans United for Life, told LifeSiteNews.com that the recent vote in the Senate indicates that it will likely pass the omnibus bill along with it anti-life provisions.
The bill massively expands funding for “international family planning” to the tune of $648.5 million – a boost of $103 million over Fiscal Year 2009. With President Obama having rescinded the Mexico City Policy earlier this year, Harned told LSN that pro-life advocates have “grave concerns” that nothing now stands in the way of that funding going to organizations involved in promoting or providing abortion overseas.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) – a U.N. entity notorious for its collusion in the forced abortions and sterilizations of China's one-child policy – also receives $55 million total for FY 2010, an extra $5 million above the previous year.
However, the bill, while a significant blow to the pro-life cause, could have been even worse for pro-life advocates. The House version that will be debated by the Senate does not include amendments that would have codified the repeal of the Mexico City Policy and have subsidized abortions for federal employees.
Harned explained that codifying the Mexico City Policy's repeal would have prevented future pro-life presidents from reinstituting the ban on “family-planning” dollars from going to overseas abortion providers.
“It is a concern that we need to look at each year when appropriations bills come up, but for now that is not going to happen,” she said.