WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The House of Representatives has begun debate on a bill that will overturn at least nine pro-life policies, including reinstating taxpayer-funded abortion domestically and abroad, according to Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey.
The bill is H.R. 2740, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The House began consideration of the measure June 12.
"This is pro-abortion legislation on steroids," Smith said in comments delivered on the House floor. Smith, a Catholic, is co-chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.
He pointed specifically to language in the bill that would block a Trump administration reform of the Title X Family Planning Program as well as overturn a conscience rights rule for health care providers and the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance program.
Regarding Title X, H.R. 2740 would reverse the Trump administration's "Protect Life Rule," put in place Feb. 22. It states that funds appropriated under Title X Family Planning Program cannot be used to offer abortion as a family planning service or to perform abortions. H.R. 2740 would grant funding to family planning organizations that provide and promote abortions. As proposed it would also block "Protect Life Rule" protections against child abuse, molestation, sexual abuse, and human trafficking.
Smith railed against the bill, saying supporters of legal abortion are like members of a "modern-day Flat Earth Society" that "continues to cling to outdated, indefensible argument cloaked in euphemism."
If passed, the appropriations bills also will block implementation of the Department of Health and Human Services's recent rule, "Protecting Statutory Conscience Rights in Health Care." This protects organizations that conscientiously object to providing abortion, assisted suicide and sterilization services from discrimination.
Finally, the proposed bill would overturn the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance program. This program was originally created by President Ronald Reagan, with Democratic administrations rescinding it and Republican administrations reinstating it. Trump reestablished the policy in an executive order three days after taking office in 2017.
The program says that foreign, private organizations seeking U.S. population control funding must not offer or promote abortion as a family planning option, or campaign to change abortion laws in their country. The program does not decrease overall U.S. population control funding, but selectively reassigns funding to organizations that comply with standards under the Protecting Life program.
If passed, this bill will bulldoze these pro-life regulations, allowing U.S. taxpayer money to fund foreign abortions.
"The shocking number of unborn children killed in America is unconscionable - approximately 61 million dead babies since 1973 -- a death toll that equates to the entire population of Italy," Smith said in his remarks June 12.. "All of this when our knowledge about unborn children and the breathtaking miracle of life before birth is unparalleled."
However, Smith said in a statement that this bill will not get past Trump, who, he said, will likely veto it, sending it back down to Congress, which he predicted would "sustain that veto."
In a June 12 letter to members of Congress, the National Right to Life Committee echoed Smith's objections, urging the lawmakers "to oppose H.R. 2740 in its current form" because of the provisions "that roll back current pro-life policies."
Would it kill Catholic media to at least attempt to give a transparent and truthful article regarding the legal issues on abortion? Really - this is so destructive a choice in dialogue.
Most of these laws were newly created and only pushed in by pro-life when the congress took on a majority republican reality and since they have lost that majority in the house, the pro life laws are being re-over-turned.
The one that definitely needs to be overturned is the one which demands no funding for charities overseas that help fund, or do not refuse to fund abortions to desperately poor women. Also this rule threatens not to fund charities that seek to have abortion legalized in other countries. These kinds of charity restrictions cost large amounts of both the lives of the unborn and women, especially poor women.
Again the facts are these - Abortion laws restricting abortion during any phase of pregnancy, anywhere in the world, do always result in more abortions being done or procured in those countries, and with far more maternal deaths occurring as well. PRO-LIFE'S LEGAL REMEDIES CAUSE ONLY GREATER AMOUNTS OF DEATHS OF BOTH THE UNBORN AND BORN EVERYWHERE THEY HAVE BEEN ENACTED AROUND THE GLOBE! NOT LIKING THESE FACTS DOES NOT MAKE THEM ANY LESS TRUE. This information is correct and from the World Health Organization and Guttmacher and from the individual countries abortion stats. There exists no reliable source of abortion stats that refutes this information.
FACT: THE COUNTRIES WITH THE HIGHEST ABORTION RATES IN THE WORLD ARE SIGNIFICANTLY CATHOLIC IN POPULATION AND RUN BY LEADERS WITH CATHOLIC MORALITY. THIS IS NOT A COINCIDENCE. SOUTH AMERICAN COUNTRIES HAVE THE HIGHEST AMOUNT OF CATHOLICS AND THE STRICTEST ABORTION LAWS AND THE HIGHEST ABORTION RATES AND MATERNAL DEATH RATES. hmmmmm MAYBE THERE'S A CONNECTION!? PRO-LIFE KILLS!
PRO-LIFE'S CHOICE OF KEEPING POOR WOMEN IN POOR COUNTRIES WITHOUT SAFE AND LEGAL AND AFFORDABLE BIRTH CONTROL AND ABORTION RIGHTS MAY WELL HAVE CAUSED MORE ABORTIONS ALONE THAN ALL THE ABORTIONS PERFORMED BY ALL PLANNED PARENTHOODS IN AMERICA, OVER THE LAST TEN YEARS, PUT TOGETHER.
What this jerk of a Republican forgot to tell you is that the U.S. has one of the lowest abortion rates in the world due to its liberal and easy access to both birth control and abortion. It is time to ask these politicians why they are pushing for laws they know will only cause more abortions and more deaths of women in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world.
From Guttmacher: Abortion and Birth Control Stats.
(Notes from my other research on this topic - bottom)
REGIONAL INCIDENCE AND TRENDS:
• The highest annual rate of abortion in 2010–2014 was in the Caribbean, estimated at 59 per 1,000 women of childbearing age, followed by South America, at 48.
The lowest rates were in Northern America, at 17, and Western and Northern Europe—at 16 and 18, respectively.
• Across regions, Eastern Europe experienced the largest decline in the abortion rate, from 88 in 1990–1994 to 42 in 2010–2014. Despite this decline, there is a persistent gap in rates between Eastern and Western Europe (42 vs. 16) likely reflecting lower use of effective, modern contraceptive methods in Eastern Europe.
• The overall abortion rate in Africa was 34 per 1,000 women in 2010–2014. Subregional rates ranged from 31 in Western Africa to 38 in Northern Africa. There has been little if any change in abortion rates in these subregions since 1990–1994.
• For Latin America, subregional abortion rates range from 33 in Central America to 48 in South America. Rates have increased slightly since 1990–1994, but not by statistically significant amounts.
• Abortion rates in Asia have also fallen since 1990–1994, although not significantly. Asia’s subregions all have rates close to the regional average of 36 per 1,000 women.
• Highly restrictive abortion laws are not associated with lower abortion rates. When countries are grouped according to the grounds under which the procedure is legal, the rate is 37 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age where it is prohibited altogether or allowed only to save a woman’s life, compared with 34 per 1,000 where it is available on request, a nonsignificant difference.
• High levels of unmet need for contraception help explain the prevalence of abortion in countries with restrictive abortion laws.
What I have researched from other appropriate sources agrees with Guttmacher but also indicates the below information on this subject:
The World Health Organization Research agrees with the Guttmacher Research. Their results are almost identical.
However, neither the W.H.O. or Guttmacher can give us a solid conclusion, due to lack of evidence, as to what happens when countries offer easy access to quality birth control but make their abortion laws stricter. This is due to the fact that most countries either are lenient on both issues or they are strict on access to both abortion and birth control.
We could make some confident speculation, based on the global evidence that does exist, that in countries, currently, where laws are strict for both abortion and birth control or where both are criminalized, that were these countries to loosen up laws on birth control access alone and not on abortion, the abortion rates would come down more, and likely closer to where the Western and developed nations are at. However, these countries are not necessarily or likely to get quite as low as the western, industrialized, countries since there does exist evidence that the mere difficulty of access to abortion alone lends, especially in certain cases, to higher abortion rates by itself.
Unfortunately, in the countries where the laws for abortion become much stricter than in the past, such as may exist in the U.S. for the future, the amount of abortions could increase quite a bit even if birth control access remains easy and free. One of the reasons this is true is due to the fact that, in these countries, many women who get pregnant in their later years, 40s or older, often now seek to get an amnio to see if their fetus is healthy. They can only get this during the late part of the 3rd month or beginning of the fourth month of their pregnancy. With stricter laws, some of these women may decide they don't want to take the chance the fetus is unhealthy or has downs syndrome, and instead may opt to get an early abortion thru more easily, anonymously obtained, although perhaps illegally obtained, abortion pills. These pills become not an option in later months, and testing would put women in a position to not be able to deny they are pregnant, publicly, if they wait, so this puts the women at risk they could be charged with a crime if abortion becomes illegal. (Please note: I am not suggesting this is right or moral or Christian behavior but only that the reality exist and I personally know quite a few women who would fit this category, today, in the U.S. despite anyone's opinions or beliefs)
A horrible side effect of the above situation is this: 50% of all downs fetuses naturally miscarry in the first trimester, and 40% that make it to the 2nd trimester miscarry then. Fetuses that have other severe health issues often miscarry, naturally, within the first three - four months of pregnancy as well. The amount of downs fetuses that become born infants are very small amounts even for older women. This illness is still quite rare overall. This means many women could end up aborting perfectly healthy fetuses, by the thousands, each year, or more, to avoid the possibility of having an unhealthy baby, and this number increases if women already have other children. One way some western countries avoid this issue is that they keep early abortions legal and allow later abortions into the 4th and 5th month if the fetus has tested unhealthy or the woman's life is in real danger if she remains pregnant. Many married older women think they aren't fertile when they still are and stop taking birth control.
Lastly, there is no existing evidence that easy access to abortions, even throughout pregnancy, equates to more abortions, in any country, that has free and easy access to birth control. In fact, countries with easy access to abortion and also free easy access to birth control have the lowest rates in the world, and these rates lower even more when those countries offer mandated longer paid maternity/paternity leaves, free quality universal health care, and free, quality, public daycare. (The only exception to this seems to be Sweden. Despite Sweden's similarly ease of access to both abortion and birth control and it's offering many of the benefits listed above that other Western European Countries offer, it still has quite a high abortion rate. However, there is no evidence suggesting that tightening Sweden's existing laws would lower its rate for abortion and doing so would likely only raise it even higher.)
The evidence we do have seems to indicate, on a global scale, that despite what seems reasonable in theory, i.e., harsh abortion laws will lower abortion rates, is completely false when put to the test in reality. It just may be that easy access to abortion, and lenient abortion laws, help more to reduce abortion rates than having strict laws against abortion, in any country. Perhaps some morality issues simply cannot be solved by force or threat but must instead be dealt with by respecting the situation of the people involved and helping them out of their place of fear or desperation, with physical and material protections and emotional and spiritual support. We could do much more perhaps by encouraging a choice for good, and for life, without attempting to control women. We could choose to help women in real ways, instead of trying to corner them into doing the Christian thing.