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Prevention First Act is FOCA's Dangerous but Overlooked "Evil Twin," says ALL Co-Founder

By Kathleen Gilbert

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 27, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - American Life League's (ALL) Judie Brown last week urged pro-lifers to actively oppose the Prevention First Act (PFA), legislation currently under review in Congress. The Act, if passed, would hand over millions to "family planning" methods, strike a blow to health providers' conscience rights, and financially pave the way for the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA).

Brown, who called the bill FOCA's "evil twin," urged the pro-life community to recognize the more imminent danger presented by PFA.

"We have been warning the entire pro-life movement that this would be a priority, and now we see it in black and white on the official White House web site’s women’s issues page," said Brown in an ALL column. 

Brown complained that FOCA, the legislation designed to render illegal all state and federal regulations on abortion, has received more attention than PFA among pro-life circles, although PFA is already "gathering steam."  "If and when FOCA is ever introduced and starts to build steam, we are ready to take that on as well, but first things first!" Brown wrote.

The Prevention First Act, which was introduced in the first day of the new Congress, is currently under review by a congressional committee.

"It's a one-two punch: FOCA to strip away all the restrictions and then PFA to pour millions, if not billions, in the abortion industry," Jim Sedlak, executive director of American Life League's (ALL) STOPP International and an expert on Planned Parenthood, told LifeSiteNews.com.  "The Prevention First Act ... opens the floodgates for Planned Parenthood and all kinds of birth control, contraception, [and] family planning money."

In addition to supplying abortion and contraception with more taxpayer funding, Sedlak pointed out coercive elements in the bill, including a title requiring all hospitals that do not provide emergency contraception for rape victims to surrender all federal funding. 

"That provision would also result presumably in Catholic hospitals having to shut down if they refuse to provide contraception," said Sedlak, noting that such hospitals would lose Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements. 

PFA would require Medicaid to cover contraceptives in the same format as had been proposed, then removed, in Obama's economic stimulus package.  (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jan/09012702.html)

In addition, all health insurance programs that cover prescriptions would be required to cover the abortifacient morning-after pill.

"We invite our fellow pro-life leaders and their supporters to get with it and start doing all we can to stop this atrocious piece of legislation," wrote Brown in her column.

To read Jim Sedlak's breakdown of PFA, go to: http://www.all.org/article.php?id=11701

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