Payback Time: What Planned Parenthood Expects from Obama

06 November 2008 — Vol. 10/ No. 47

The decades-long love affair between Barack Obama and Planned
Parenthood has reached its political fruition. Obama will soon be
ensconced in the Oval Office, with all the people who helped put him
there lined up outside for goodies. At the head of the line will be
Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. What will they ask
for?

The three things that they want from a President Obama are more
money for their contraception and sterilization programs, an end to
any and all restrictions on abortions, and taxpayer funding, including
funding for abortion itself.

Judging by what Obama has said over the course of the campaign, he
will be happy to grant their wishes.

First of all, Barack Obama has pledged to pay for abortions with
our tax dollars. According to his own web site, he is an original
co-sponsor of the “Prevention First Act,” which 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.”

What this reasonable-sounding languages disguises, of course, is
the ugly reality that the Prevention First Act would actually force
insurance companies to fund, doctors to prescribe, and pharmacies to
dispense, abortifacient contraceptives. “Providing compassionate
assistance to rape victims,” when translated into plain English, means
forcing you and I to pay for morning after pills and abortions.

Second, Obama has also promised–in the strongest possible
terms–to sign the radical Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which 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.” It would also prohibit so-called “discrimination . . . in the
regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or
information.” If passed, the Freedom of Choic Act would nulligy 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 deacdes would be
swept away.

Third, and potentially most damaging in the long run, 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 Obama’s own words, he will surely appoint people of like
mind, assuring us that he wants to put “people on the bench who have
enough empathy, enough feeling for what ordinary people are going
through.” So much for the Constitution.

As it stands now, the Supreme Court is currently effectively
deadlocked on the Life issues, with Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas
reliable pro-life votes, and Breyer, Ginsburg, Stevens and Souter
equally reliably pro-abortion. With at least two justices getting on
in years and another reportedly expressing interest in retiring, the
next president may have ample opportunity to appoint more than one
judge to the land’s highest court.

In the face of Obama’s expected onslaught against Life what can we
do?

Those with pro-life convictions must continue to act on those
convictions. We must continue to be a presence outside of abortion
centers in order to let women know that there is a “choice” beyond
abortion. We must continue to help women who come to our crises
pregnancy centers with counseling and baby cribs. We must let our
remaining friends in the House and Senate know that we expect them,
although outnumbered, to stand and fight for Life. Unless the Party of
Abortion can muster 60 votes in the Senate, the Freedom of Choice Act
will be a dead letter.

Finally, we must redouble our efforts to expose the abortion
movement for what it is: An anti-child, anti-woman movement that has
cost America 50 million lives and counting.

Steven Mosher is the President of the Population Research Institute
Colin Mason is the Director of Media Production at Population Research Institute

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