Future Obama abortion legislation will violate conscience rights, PRI president says

Nov 7, 2008 / 04:41 am

President-elect Barack Obama’s concessions to his pro-abortion rights supporters will include the appointment of abortion-friendly Supreme Court justices and the signing of legislative acts which mandate federal taxpayer funding for abortions, strike down “any and all” federal restrictions on abortion, and violate the rights of pro-life conscientious objectors.

So report Steve Mosher and Colin Mason in the Population Research Institute’s (PRI) Weekly Briefing released on Thursday.

The PRI’s briefing reports that Obama has pledged to pay for abortions with Americans’ tax dollars, such as in the Prevention First Act which he co-sponsored in the Senate. The bill will “increase funding for family planning and comprehensive sex education that teaches both abstinence and safe sex methods. The Act will also end insurance discrimination against contraception, improve awareness about emergency contraception, and provide compassionate assistance to rape victims.”

According to PRI, this language disguises the “ugly reality” that the legislation would “force insurance companies to fund, doctors to prescribe, and pharmacies to dispense, abortifacient contraceptives.”

Obama has also pledged to pass the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), whose language states that it would prohibit the states from “interference with a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability or . . . after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman” and prohibit so-called "discrimination . . . in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information."

“If passed,” the PRI briefing argues, “the Freedom of Choice Act would nullify any and all restrictions on abortion, from parental consent laws, to waiting periods, to informed consent provisions, and the like.  All of the hard work of pro-lifers over the past three decades would be swept away.”

 PRI claims that Obama has pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices “based on their friendliness to his agenda, and not their qualifications as impartial arbiters of the law.”

 In addition, the Supreme Court is “effectively deadlocked” on pro-life issues, with one justice reportedly interested in retiring and two more advancing in age.

“The next president may have ample opportunity to appoint more than one judge to the land's highest court,” the PRI briefing says.

The institute’s president goes on to advise action in the face of President-elect Obama’s “onslaught against life.”

“Those with pro-life convictions must continue to act on those convictions,” it continues, counseling continued presence outside of abortion clinics, continued counseling and material aid to women through crisis pregnancy centers, and support for remaining pro-life congressmen.

“Unless the Party of Abortion can muster 60 votes in the Senate, the Freedom of Choice Act will be a dead letter,” the PRI briefing states, asking pro-lifers to redouble their efforts to expose the abortion movement as “an anti-child, anti-woman movement that has cost America 50 million lives and counting.”