Dear Colleague:
Those who favor abortion "rights" claim to be pro-choice, but this is
merely a semantic ploy intended to dupe the unwary. For what the
pro-abortion movement calls "reproductive freedom" in fact means
forcing
people and private institutions to fund and perform abortions. This is
why, in a country where abortion is legal up to the point of birth, the
abortionists at NARAL grudgingly give America a "D" grade. The
mind balks
at what it would take to earn an "A": Child sacrifice?
Steven W. Mosher
President
PRI Weekly Briefing
24 November 2004
Vol. 6 / No. 37
The Conscience Protection Amendment and NARAL's "D"
By Joseph A. D'Agostino
Now that the state of California has forced Catholic Charities, in
violation of Catholic teaching, to pay for contraceptives, a federal
effort to protect Americans from having to perform abortions shouldn't
surprise anyone. Congressmen Henry Hyde (R.-Ill.) and Dave Weldon
(R.-Fla.) succeeded last week by writing a conscience protection clause
into a spending bill that passed Congress. The Hyde-Weldon Conscience
Protection Amendment simply forbids forcing health insurance companies,
hospitals, and doctors to perform, pay for, or otherwise participate in
abortions by providing abortion referrals or information.
The amendment passed because a large majority of Americans-and their
elected representatives-believe that abortion kills. Many think that the
government should outlaw it altogether. Others, like Mario Cuomo and John
Kerry, say they are personally pro-life but favor the pro-choice position
legally. But without this amendment, they and millions of other Americans
who work in the health care industry and think as they do could be forced
to choose between murder and losing their jobs.
The National Organization for Women (NOW), the National Abortion Rights
Action League (NARAL), Democratic congressional leaders, and other
pro-abortion figures could have used the passage of the Hyde-Weldon
amendment as an opportunity to highlight their supposed belief in the
primacy of personal choice and conscience. "We are happy to support
this
provision," they could have said. "Just as no one has to have an
abortion
if she doesn't want one, no one has to perform or participate in an
abortion if they don't want to."
Instead, pro-abortion feminist leaders are spewing forth an amazingly
vitriolic collection of rhetoric. They are bashing religion--as if
refusing to perform an abortion on religious grounds is unacceptable-while
ignoring those who oppose abortion for secular reasons.
"House and Senate Republicans sneaked potentially sweeping language into
the House spending bill allowing health care providers to use their
personal religious opinions to restrict health care services to women...,"
said NOW in a November 20 press release. "HMOs and insurance
companies
could refuse to provide any abortion services, information or referrals to
abortion services. ... This gag makes women's bodies the property of
right-wing legislators and allows insurance providers' personal and
religious beliefs to dictate health care choices for women." NOW
predicted, "This is the tragic beginning of a tyrannical march to
indenture girls and women as second-class citizens, slowly limiting their
autonomy and authority over their basic health decisions."
NARAL Interim President Elizabeth Cavendish insisted, "This move
highlights the true agenda of the far right, which controls Congress and
the White House-eliminating a woman's right to choose." (Consider:
Does
NARAL actually believe that the American people just returned control of
the presidency and Congress, with an increased majority, to the "far
right"?)
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.), continuing to spout the
failed rhetoric that just cost her party the election, said, "The Title X
family planning program provides much-needed reproductive health services
that reach millions of low-income, uninsured individuals. ... [U]nder this
amendment, clinics could participate in the Title X program without
providing a full range of reproductive health services. Federal dollars
should not be used to deny the federally-protected right to choose."
In
the warped logic of the House's top Democrat, giving federal money to
clinics that don't provide abortions somehow constitutes the denial of a
right.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Gloria Feldt weighed in
as well, saying, "The vast majority of Americans oppose allowing health
care entities to deny services to women, even if those entities claim
their refusal is based on religious or moral grounds."
For these and other radical abortion rights groups, "reproductive
freedom"
means forcing other people to perform an act that they sincerely believe
is murder. "It is not enough for abortion groups that 1.3 million
unborn
children are violently killed every year in this country-they want to
force Catholic hospitals to do the killing," responded Rep. Chris Smith
(R.-N.J.). "This is about protecting the fundamental right of
conscience
for those who do not want to be forced to be involved in abortion. NARAL
let the cat out of the bag on their website a few years ago when they
launched a program dedicated to 'requiring Maryland hospitals to provide
abortion'-against the will of the hospitals."
The other co-sponsor of the bill, Dave Weldon, who is himself a doctor,
noted, "This policy simply states that health care entities should not be
forced to provide elective abortions, a practice to which a majority of
health care providers object and which they will not perform as a matter
of conscience."
NARAL, especially, is very displeased with the state of America's abortion
regime. Earlier this year it released a report that concluded, "The
nation's overall grade for women's access to abortion dropped to a dismal
D." A "D"? Abortion-on-demand at any point in
pregnancy is legal in
every state, abortion clinics dot the landscape like human waste dumps,
and abortions cost only a few hundred dollars each. Moreover, tens of
millions of tax dollars flow each year to groups, like Planned Parenthood,
that perform abortions. And all this generates a "D"?
Radical feminists now apparently believe that abortion-on-demand means
that every medical practitioner has to perform an abortion if such is
requested of him. Perhaps NARAL's "D" stands for
"Demand": a demand that
each and every pro-life American be personally complicit in the slaughter.
Joseph A. D'Agostino is Vice President for Communications at the
Population Research Institute.
PRI
P.O. Box 1559
Front Royal, VA 22630
USA
Phone: (540) 622-5240 Fax: (540) 622-2728
Email: jad@pop.org
Media Contact: Joseph A. D'Agostino
(540) 622-5240, ext. 204
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