Catholic Family News
Update
RE: Important News Regarding pro-Abortion Freedom of Choice Act
January 14, 2008
Recently, an email was widely distributed by various individuals calling for a Novena to stop Freedom of Choice Act. The email stated that Congress was scheduled to vote on January 21 or 22 on FOCA.
CFN did not distribute this email as we could not confirm the supposed dates for the Congressional vote.
What follows is a note from Adrienne Doring, Director: Respect Life Office for the Diocese of Kansas City that sets the record straight. She also explains how concerned people can get involved with the post-card/letter-writing campaign to Congressmen and President-Elect Obama that was initiated by the US Bishops, an initiative that CFN endorses.
Below her letter is an excerpt from
Helen Westover, one of the founders of STOPP Planned Parenthood, on the dangers
posed by FOCA.
THREE IMPORTANT POINTS REGARDING
POST-CARD/LETTER CAMPAIGN TO CONGRESSMEN & SENATORS:
1) A postcard
sample is can be downloaded here:
2) A veteran pro-life activist told me recently that an actual letter-writing campaign is even more
effective than postcards, so do not hesitate to write a letter in respectful
language urging your Congressman to oppose FOCA;
3) To
find out the mailing address of your congressman and senator, go to http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
It is best to send your letters/post-cards to his Washington DC
address.
Please forward this update to as many people as
possible, and keep watch for CFN's upcoming announcement for a Rosary Novena to
Stop FOCA.
In JMJ
John
Vennari
Editor
Letter from Adrienne Doring
Dear Friends,
While I am thrilled to
see a message urging prayers in opposition to the passage of the Freedom of
Choice Act (FOCA), the suggestion that this bill is scheduled for a vote on
January 21 or 22 is not accurate. It is true that abortion proponents
have made the passage of FOCA a priority, and the new Congress is more
pro-abortion, and President-elect Obama publicly promised Planned Parenthood
that he would sign FOCA if it passes Congress. However, there is no indication
right now that FOCA will be taken up by Congress on that date or in the
immediate future, probably due in no small part to the huge economic and
international crises facing our nation. So while I encourage the prayers, it is
important to correct the record so no one is misled about what is happening in
Congress.
Please be aware that there is other misinformation in the
email about forced abortions and the closing of Catholic hospitals. (FOCA
itself is expressed throughout in terms of the woman's freedom of choice over
pregnancy, birth and abortion, so such a pro-coercion amendment would have to
say the exact opposite of what the text of the bill now says. Most Catholic
hospitals are not under diocesan ownership, so it wouldn't be only a local
bishop deciding to close them, but if the hospitals are kicked out of Medicaid,
Medicare and other government programs because they can't provide
"nondiscriminatory" care they most likely would have to close.) The point is
FOCA is radical enough to be frightening without making charges we can't back
up.
Having said that, I strongly encourage those who are interested
in being informed about pro-life issues and action in our region and nationally
to subscribe to my pro-life e-mail list by signing up at
http://www.respectlifemissouri.org/. I will not inundate you with
e-mails and I will not share them with anyone else. I send out a monthly
newsletter and occasionally an important update. I work hard to make sure the
information is accurate.
Whether abortion proponents and their friends
in Congress and the White House work to expand the abortion license in a
wholesale way through FOCA or one policy at a time, there is no question we are
facing a huge challenge to just maintain the modest pro-life policies currently
in place. Prayer and action is critical.
This is the reason why the U.S.
Bishops have unanimously approved a "Fight FOCA Postcard Campaign"
to communicate to Congress (and
secondarily to the President) that millions and millions of Americans strongly
oppose FOCA and any other effort to undermine existing pro-life policies. This
campaign will be carried out in most or all Catholic parishes in the Diocese of
Kansas City-St. Joseph at Masses on or around the weekend of January 31-February
1 with the encouragement of Bishop Finn. In doing so, we will be joining
dioceses and parishes around the nation in sending a critically important
pro-life message to our Congress and President. I encourage you to participate
in this campaign and offer to assist your pastor or parish pro-life coordinator
in carrying it out. For more information on this campaign, go to
www.RespectLifeMissouri.org
.
Finally, since the postcard campaign is focused on Congress I urge
you in the next few weeks to contact the President-Elect on his website http://www.change.gov/. On this
website President-Elect Obama asks us to share with him our vision for America
(here's the direct link to that page: http://www.change.gov/page/s/yourvision
. In a respectful way, tell him that your top priority is protecting human life
from conception to natural death. Tell him you think unborn babies should have
the right to life. Tell him that you do not want our tax dollars to pay for
abortions (or human cloning or embryonic stem cell research) at home or abroad.
Ask him to NOT support FOCA or not sign it if it passes. Our next president
has asked our opinion about how he should lead and we should answer
him.
Please forward this to anyone who
may be interested.
God bless you
all!
Adrienne Doring
Director |
Respect Life Office | Diocese of Kansas City - St. Joseph
300 East 36th
Street | Kansas City, MO 64111
Excpert from
The FOCA
Fight
by Helen Westover
Published
in Catholic Family News
January, 2008
Candidate Barack Hussein Obama made a solemn promise to the National Association for Abortion Rights (NARAL) and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America that he would back a piece of legislation called FOCA - the Freedom of Choice Act. As is explained below, FOCA will erase 30 years of anti-abortion efforts, threaten free speech, free assembly, freedom of religion. In fact FOCA has the potential of repealing the Bill of Rights for all of us. FOCA indeed is the most draconian, bloodthirsty, over-the top extremist pro-death piece of legislation ever proposed.
FOCA was crafted at a time when some in Congress feared that Roe v Wade might collapse from the weight of its own unconstitutionality. Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra O'Connor opined at one point that "Roe v Wade is in a collision course with itself." FOCA was introduced substantially in 1993 and then re-introduced in 1995. No action was taken until April 2007, after the Supreme Court's decision banning Partial Birth Abortion (or, D&X) in Gonzales v Carhart. Misrepresenting itself as only a codification of Roe, FOCA provided that it would apply "...to every federal, State, and local statute, ordinance, regulation, administrative order, policy, practice or other action enacted...before, on or after the date of enactment." Pro-death senator Barbara Boxer explained, "FOCA will supersede all other laws' meaning even the pittance of laws the antiabortion movement was able to implement. It establishes the right to abortion as a "fundamental right" comparable to the right to vote or the right to free speech.
Practically
speaking, FOCA will nullify more that 550 federal and state laws, such as:
*
The Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003;
*
The Hyde Amendment (restricting taxpayer funding for abortion);
*
Restrictions on abortions at military hospitals;
*
Restrictions on insurance coverage for abortion for federal employees;
*
Informed consent laws;
*
Parental consent laws;
*
Health and safety regulations for abortion clinics;
*
Requirements that licensed physicians commit abortions;
*
Bans on abortion after viability -- don't be fooled by the exception, first laid
down in the companion case to Roe, Doe v Bolton. Doe said that third trimester
abortions could not be performed unless to save the "health" of the mother,
then went on to use the World Health Organization's definition of "health" to
include "...all factors, including emotional, psychological, economic, and sociological
circumstances...". This is, and was, abortion on demand up to the day of birth.;
*
Limits on public funding for "elective" abortion (as in, "Gosh, I have
a vacation planned" or, "Stretch marks will cause me stress").
*
Legal protections for Catholic and other religiously affiliated hospitals who,
while providing healthcare to millions of the poor and uninsured, refuse to
allow abortions within their facilities, nor refer for abortion.
*
FOCA would also increase abortions as much as 125,000 per year.
The
fallout will include the complete outlawing of abortion protests or the provision
of alternatives to abortion. States' rights will be a thing of the past, and
with FOCA as precedent, other issues, such as opposition to homosexuality, will
fall under the same chill. We will see the Constitution rolled back into oblivion.
Catholic Family News
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