LIFE DIGEST: ERLC, others ask Bush to change rules on abortion in family planning
- Sep 9, 2008 - 5
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and other pro-life organizations have asked President Bush finally to change regulations that have enabled the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and other organizations to use federal funds to promote abortion as a form of family planning.
For more than seven years, Bush’s administration has failed to revise rules instituted under President Clinton that removed the wall between abortion services and family planning clinics that receive Title X grants. Title X is the federal government’s family planning program.
Barrett Duke, vice president for public policy of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and 77 others told Bush in an Aug. 4 letter the refusal to address the issue “has undermined your Administration’s consistent commitment to ensure that federal funds deployed for family planning projects not be used to promote abortion as a method of family planning.”
They asked the president to make the changes in the Title X rules before he leaves office in January so “taxpayer funds are not used to promote and facilitate abortion.” They said the arrangement of abortion and family planning clinics side by side “sends the wrong message, defies Congressional intent and should not be allowed.”
Regulations issued during President Reagan’s administration made clear recipients of Title X funds may not “refer for abortion or combine family planning services with abortion services,” the letter said. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld those rules in a 1991 opinion, but the Clinton administration changed them. Under Clinton, the regulations require Title X recipients to refer for abortions and permit abortion clinics and family planning centers with which they are affiliated even to use the same staff and space, according to the letter.
In the most recent financial year, Title X funding grew by almost $17 million to a record of nearly $300 million, the letter said.
In addition to Duke, other signers included Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council; Tom Minnery, senior vice president of Focus on the Family; Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America; Colleen Parro, executive director of Republican National Coalition for Life; David Stevens, chief executive officer of Christian Medical Association; Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America; Phyllis Schlafly, president of Eagle Forum, and Donald Wildmon, chairman of American Family Association.
Affiliates of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the country’s No. 1 abortion provider, performed nearly 290,000 abortions in 2006, the most recent year for which statistics exist. PPFA surpassed $1 billion in annual revenue for the first time last year, with more than $336 million of that total coming in grants and contracts from the federal and state governments.
Catholic leaders counter Pelosi on ‘life’
Roman Catholic leaders have refuted what they call Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s misrepresentation of the church’s teaching on when life begins.
The Roman Catholic Democrat has even been invited by the archbishop of her home diocese for a meeting about her views and her participation in communion.
San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer announced his invitation to Pelosi in a Sept. 5 column in the archdiocese’s newspaper, Catholic San Francisco. Niederauer is the latest in a succession of Catholic leaders who have corrected contentions made by Pelosi in an Aug. 24 interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the Catholic Church has been unable to define through the centuries when life begins and has only in the last 50 years determined it starts at conception.
In his column, Niederauer discussed the withholding of communion to Catholics who willfully violate the church’s teaching on such issues as abortion. Although Niederauer did not declare a position on the potential discipline of Pelosi, he said it is his responsibility to decide how to deal with the issue and he has invited her to take part in a “conversation with me about these matters.”
Pelosi, who has served as a Democratic representative from San Francisco for nearly 22 years, elicited strong protest from the Catholic clergy and laity when she said on “Meet the Press” the church has been indecisive on when life begins. She also argued it doesn’t matter what the correct answer is, because a woman’s right to an abortion trumps an unborn baby’s rights, regardless of when his life begins.
“Meet the Press” host Tom Brokaw asked Pelosi about the beginning of life.
“I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time,” said Pelosi, whose voting record has strongly supported abortion rights. “And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make the definition. . . . We don’t know. The point is, is that it shouldn’t have an impact on the woman’s right to choose.”
Brokaw replied the Catholic Church “at the moment feels very strongly” life begins at conception.
“I understand,” she responded. “And this is like maybe 50 years or something like that. So again, over the history of the church, this is an issue of controversy. But it is, it is also true that God has given us, each of us, a free will and a responsibility to answer for our actions.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, plus several members of the conference, firmly rejected Pelosi’s assertions.
Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-life Activities, and Bishop William Lori, chairman of the Committee on Doctrine, said in an Aug. 26 news release the church’s Catechism teaches, “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.
“[T]he Church teaches that from the time of conception (fertilization), each member of the human species must be given the full respect due to a human person, beginning with respect for the fundamental right to life.”
Archbishops who corrected the record on Catholic teaching after Pelosi’s comments on abortion included Edward Egan of New York, Donald Wuerl of Washington, Francis George of Chicago and Charles Chaput of Denver.
Biden offers private-public argument on abortion
Tom Brokaw asked Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, also a Roman Catholic, the same question on the Sept. 7 telecast of “Meet the Press.”
Biden said he is “prepared to accept the teachings of my church” but would not impose that belief on others.
“I’m prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception,” Biden told Brokaw. “But that is my judgment. For me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I am seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society.”
Brokaw asked Biden about his pro-abortion rights voting record as a U.S. senator from Delaware.
“I voted against telling everyone else in the country that they have to accept my religiously based view that it’s [at the] moment of conception,” Biden said.
R. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said an examination of Biden’s argument is “truly horrifying.”
“I believe Sen. Biden to be a serious man, and that is what is most frightening about this,” Mohler wrote on his weblog Sept. 8. “Can a morally serious man really say that he believes that unborn babies are human beings, but that it should be a protected right to kill them?”
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission works to protect the sanctity of human life. If you would like to learn more about this issue, additional resources are available here. If your church is interested in purchasing bulletin inserts or other materials on the sanctity of human life, please visit our online bookstore and erlc.com.
5 comments (post your own) feed
1 On Sep 10th, 2008, at 3:57pm, Rev.Peter Treadwell wrote:
It would not shock me if this president does nothing to tighten the ropes around abortion. His first term in office the republicans controlled both the senate and the congress and did nothing to out law abortion. So why doesn’t the church wake up and admit that this president like his fahter have played evangelicals for suckers and gotten what they wanted.
2 On Sep 12th, 2008, at 8:13am, joi wasill wrote:
In response to comment one, the President cannot initiate legislation. It must come from the legislative body, the Congress. Second, the President cannot overturn a decision by the Supreme Court. Only the Supreme Court can overturn Roe v Wade. This president did appoint two justices who are in favor of overturning the decision and with the appointment of one more pro-life justice, we may see this horrible law repealed. Another reason to vote for a pro-life candidate in November. Please get a copy of a high school civics book and read about the separation of powers that our founding fathers so wisely created in our form of government before stating that the President should outlaw something that he has no power to do.
3 On Sep 15th, 2008, at 10:05am, Noris Gilliam wrote:
It is Pres. Bush’s responsibility to enforce the law whether he thinks there should be exceptions(Planned Parenthood) or not. He could be empeached for failing to do so.
Since he is not up for reelection, There is no reason he should not perform a master stroke to get all this straightened out and should.
As for Biden, he is guilty of murder for voting to allow crime to take place whether it is someone else performing the deed or not. As a law maker, it is his responsibility to pass laws to protect the innocent.
4 On Sep 15th, 2008, at 3:18pm, Rev. Peter Treadwell wrote:
We can make all the excuses we want for the republicans we want. I would not expect any different behavior out of the democratic camp. But to say you’re prolife and not one senator or congressman has brought a bill to the floor to stop this holocaust against children in the womb. Maybe the answer is to divorce both parties and start a real party of the people and by the people and not fronted by filthy U.S corporations who put their own puppets in and call the tunes that they dnace to inorder to stay in office.
5 On Sep 15th, 2008, at 8:44pm, S Jackson wrote:
I thought you supported stay at home moms when they have the financial capability to do so?
I am disappointmented that now you support this Feminist behaving Sara Palin. Leaving ones husband, five month old special needs child, six year old & teen daughters 14 & 17 to run around the country in pursuit of political power is selfish and hardly a role model I want my daughters to emulate. If more godly Christian non feminst women (unlike Geraldine Ferraro viewed their children as their first ministry and a gift from the Lord. We wouldn"t have the moral decline we now have along with the high divorce rate & teen pregnancies among Christians that we have now. Selfishness and being out of Gods (ordained order) seems to be the rule of law & Christian conservation groups are coming across as hyprocrites because Christian women can’t rule in anyway over men in the church. Ms Palin is talking out of both sides of her faces.