LIFE DIGEST: Groups seek abortion ‘bailout’ from Obama
- Dec 23, 2008
More than 60 organizations have urged President-elect Obama to promote a dramatic advance in “reproductive rights,’ which would result in a vast increase in abortions and taxpayer support of the lethal procedures.
Also in this edition: Another Planned Parenthood worker caught in cover-up and Australian doctors urge Down tests for all women
The groups presented their agenda to Obama in a 55-page memo, which was posted for a time on the president-elect’s transition website, www.change.gov. The abortion rights advocates called for numerous policy changes in the first 100 days of the new administration, including requests that Obama:
- Propose a health-care reform plan that would guarantee “access to the full range of reproductive health services,” including abortion.
- Nominate only justices and judges who are committed to the “fundamental constitutional right to privacy, including the right to have an abortion.”
- Work with Congress to rescind the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits Medicaid and other federal funds from paying for abortions.
- Increase from $300 million to $700 million funding for Title X, the family planning program that benefits Planned Parenthood Federation of America affiliates and other abortion providers.
- Repeal the Mexico City policy, which bars federal funds from going to organizations that promote or perform abortions in foreign countries.
- Restore federal funding of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), which provides support for China’s “one-child” population-control policy that includes forced abortions and sterilizations.
The most far-reaching action the memo urges is for Obama to call on Congress to pass the Freedom of Choice Act, which would codify the 1973 Roe v. Wade opinion legalizing abortion and eliminate all restrictions on abortion and abortion funding.
The total cost for the policies endorsed by the organizations is about $4.6 billion, according to STOPP International, American Life League’s project to stop Planned Parenthood.
The president-elect “spoke of finding ‘common ground’ on abortion policy, but abortion advocacy groups clearly see an open door,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, in a written release. “After a decade of commonsense restrictions on taxpayer funding, the abortion industry thinks it deserves a bailout from President-elect Obama.”
Among the organizations endorsing the policy changes are Planned Parenthood Federation of America, NARAL Pro-choice America, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Sierra Club.
Planned Parenthood, which recorded nearly 290,000 abortions at its affiliates in 2006, surpassed $1 billion in annual revenue for the first time last year. It received more than $336 million of that total in grants and contracts from the federal and state governments.
Another Planned Parenthood worker caught in cover-up
A second Planned Parenthood of Indiana (PPIN) employee has been shown on video tape trying to cover up alleged child sexual abuse and has lost her job.
An employee at a PPIN clinic in Indianapolis resigned Dec. 18, only a week after a worker at a Bloomington affiliate was fired, the Indianapolis Star reported. Each woman was caught on an undercover video camera telling a girl who identified herself as a 13 year old impregnated by a 31-year-old man that she would not file a report. Such a report is required by state law. Each PPIN employee was shown on the video telling the girl she could get an abortion in another state in order to avoid Indiana’s parental consent law.
The 13 year old in the video secretly recorded during the summer is actually Lila Rose, a 20-year-old student at UCLA and president of the pro-life organization Live Action. In 2007, Rose posed as a minor and gained video footage of a similar cover-up at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Los Angeles.
Marion County prosecutors announced Dec. 19 they would investigate the Indianapolis incident to determine if they would bring charges against Planned Parenthood or its employees, according to the Star.
The incidents in Indiana were reported by Live Action only weeks after PPIN began offering “holiday” gift certificates that can be redeemed for its services, including abortions.
Australian doctors urge Down tests for all women
Australian obstetricians are calling for pregnant women nationwide to be screened for Down syndrome — apparently in an effort to make certain they have the opportunity to abort their babies if they test positive for the condition.
“In Australia in 2008 every single woman should be offered and have access to state-of-the-art screening tests irrespective of age,” said Euan Wallace, professor of obstetrics at Monash University, The Sydney Morning Herald reported Dec. 7.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also supports a national screening policy, according to the newspaper.
The report followed publication of a study in the British Medical Journal that showed such a screening program reduced by half the number of children born with Down syndrome in Denmark.
Free screening for Down syndrome is available in Australia’s public hospitals only to women who are 35 years old or older, The Morning Herald reported.
Down syndrome normally results when a person has three copies, rather than two, of chromosome 21. The condition typically is marked by mental and physical impairments. People with Down syndrome have a wide range of abilities, however.
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