Any Seats for Pro-Life Riders in ‘Omnibus’?
- Feb 24, 2009 - 1 -
Following a one-week vacation after pushing through a nearly $800 billion economic stimulus package, the fast and loose spenders of Congress are back to business hoping to spend another $400 billion. But even more significant than what’s included with this hefty price tag is what could be left out: decades-old protections for human life.
The House of Representatives has begun consideration of a $410 billion “omnibus” appropriations bill, a compilation of nine of 12 annual spending measures that would keep the government operating this year—not to mention also fund more unrelated pork-barrel projects. This is a resumption of unfinished business from five months ago.
Such bills typically include a series of human life protections—commonly labeled pro-life riders—that protect taxpayers from funding or promoting abortions or human embryo experimentation in the United States, as well as protect the right of conscience of health-care workers. Not necessarily this time. While the just-released bill appears to secure proper seats for most of these provisions, we remain concerned that some might ultimately be pushed to the curb.
One such provision prevents taxpayer funding of abortions under Medicaid. This rider, known as the Hyde Amendment, has been renewed annually for more than three decades under both Republican and Democrat administrations. Prior to its enactment in 1976, Americans subsidized roughly 300,000 abortions per year under Medicaid. Another longstanding policy (Kemp-Kasten) hanging in the balance allows the president to discontinue funding organizations like the United Nations Population Fund that support or manage coercive abortion policies, such as China’s one-child policy.
Also in jeopardy is a policy (Hyde-Weldon) that protects conscience rights of health-related workers, such as doctors, nurses, and insurance providers, by denying funds to state or local governments that discriminate against entities that do not support or refer for abortion. Other traditional pro-life riders include bans on funding embryo-destructive research (Dickey-Wicker) and patenting humans (Weldon). The pro-life provisions number at least a dozen in all. On top of these concerns, it also appears that funding of abstinence education could be cut by $13 million, while Title X family planning funding of abortion providers like Planned Parenthood could increase by $7 million.
Debate on this massive spending bill is shaping up much like that of the stimulus package. Like the stimulus, this omnibus bill totals more than 1,000 pages in length and has been kept hidden from the public eye and from Republican lawmakers until just recently.
Some 180 House members have signed a letter to be sent to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and the other members at the controls of the legislation requesting that “the pro-life riders be included in any legislation reported out of the Appropriations Committee.”
Americans are yet to receive assurance from the drivers of this omnibus that they will not throw off and run over these longstanding pro-life riders. We should help ensure they are clear-headed as they sit behind this legislative wheel so that no innocent lives are lost with taxpayer dollars.
If you agree, please tell your congressman and senators to oppose any appropriations bill that does not include pro-life provisions that have long been included in such bills.
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1 On Feb 24th, 2009, at 6:19pm, Wilma Mitchell wrote:
I oppose any appropriations bill that does not include pro-life provisions that have long been included in such bills.