LIFE DIGEST: Defeat of global women’s office urged
- Jun 9, 2009
A leading pro-life organization is calling on the House of Representatives to defeat legislation it says would empower the U.S. State Department to promote abortion in other countries.
The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) urged representatives in a June 5 letter to vote against a State Department authorization bill that would create an Office for Global Women’s Issues. Pro-life advocates fear the office would seek to liberalize the legal restrictions on abortion in foreign countries.
Also in this edition: Democrats for Life applauds Vatican nominee and Almost 800 Brits considering assisted suicide in Switzerland.
The measure, H.R. 2410, is expected to be voted on by the full House as early as June 10.
Unless the bill is altered, the legislation “will further empower the Obama Administration to pursue its agenda of undermining the pro-life laws of sovereign nations,” NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson said in the letter to House members. “To the extent that the Administration succeeds in such efforts, it will greatly increase the number of abortions.”
Rep. Chris Smith, R.-N.J., sought May 20 to amend the bill to block the office from efforts to repeal anti-abortion laws overseas. The effort in the House Foreign Affairs Committee went down to defeat, with all Democrats on the panel voting against Smith’s proposal and all Republican members voting for it.
Smith plans to offer a similar amendment for the bill to the Rules Committee, Johnson said. If it is approved by the House, NRLC will pull its opposition, he said.
At an April 22 hearing, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Smith and other members of the Foreign Affairs Committee the Obama administration regards abortion as “reproductive health” care and hopes to extend to women throughout the world the right to the procedure.
“We happen to think that family planning is an important part of women’s health and reproductive health includes access to abortion — that I believe should be safe, legal and rare,” Clinton said. “[W]e are now an administration that will protect the rights of women, including their rights to reproductive health care.”
Since Obama’s inauguration in January, he has initiated the repeal of some of the pro-life, foreign policies in effect during the Bush administration. He reversed the Mexico City Policy, which barred federal funds from organizations that promote or perform abortions overseas. Obama also restored money through the State Department to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which had its congressional funding withdrawn by the Bush administration for seven years for its support of China’s coercive population control program.
Democrats for Life applauds Vatican nominee
A pro-life organization says it is “excited” by President Obama’s nomination of a pro-life Democrat as ambassador to the Vatican.
The selection of Miguel Diaz, a theology professor at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minn., and the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minn., gained the approval of Democrats for Life of America.
Some Roman Catholics and pro-life advocates, however, expressed concerns about Diaz’s support of President Obama during the 2008 election campaign and of new Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during her confirmation process earlier this year. Both are proponents of abortion rights.
Almost 800 Brits considering assisted suicide in Switzerland
Nearly 800 British residents have expressed a desire to travel to Switzerland to die by assisted suicide.
The Daily Mail reported June 1 that many Brits had joined the Dignitas clinic in Zurich. The total is 10 times greater than had joined the controversial clinic in 2002.
Dignitas says it has assisted in the suicides of more than 100 people from Britain, where the practice is illegal. Assisted suicide is permitted in Switzerland.
There is an effort in the House of Lords to end the threat of prosecution of Brits who help people travel overseas to die by assisted suicide.
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