House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) vowed Monday to leverage the “biggest and the most pro-life freshman class in memory” to institute a “permanent government-wide prohibition on taxpayer funding of abortion.”
Cantor told the tens of thousands of anti-abortion protesters in town for the annual March for Life event that the legislation faces “an uphill battle in the Senate and in the White House,” but that “the people’s House will stand unapologetically for life.”
“Now the tide has turned,” Cantor said. “Thanks to your support last November, there’s a new majority in town.”
About a dozen lawmakers addressed the crowd for the annual protest that marks the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision on abortion. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), the co-chairman of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, was the first to speak. He vowed to press forward with his bill that establishes a permanent, government-wide prohibition on federal subsidies for abortion and for healthcare plans that cover abortion.
“We need your help in persuading the abortion president, who put abortion in ObamaCare — not withstanding a flawed executive order — to get this legislation passed,” Smith said.
That’s the House Majority Leader saying that. This is happening NOW.
And not just the House, but the Senate too! (Normally the Senate is more liberal than the House)
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said he’d introduce legislation Tuesday that establishes in law that human life begins at conception. Wicker argues that the Supreme Court did not tie the hands of Congress in its Roe vs. Wade decision, because its decision left unresolved the question of when life begins and explicitly acknowledged that if “personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment.”
The bill currently has five co-sponsors — Republican Sens. Richard Burr (N.C.), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Jerry Moran (Kan.), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Roy Blunt (Mo.) — with more expected to join after the bill is formally introduced. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) introduced companion legislation in the House last week.
“We’re here today to say we’re not going to abandon the fight [against abortion],” Wicker said. “Sometimes it’s defensive in nature, and heavens knows we’ve had a lot to defend against in the last two or three years. … Tomorrow we take an offensive, and I like that a lot better.”
The neat thing about Eric Cantor is that he is JEWISH. It is so good to have Jewish pro-lifers in positions of leadership!
More pro-life Republicans
John Boehner: (Speaker of the House!)
James Langford:
Martha Roby:
Ann Marie Buerkle:
I keep telling you guys – vote Republican. Now you know why I keep telling you to vote Republican.
There are SERIOUS social conservatives in the Republican party. They are NOT just FISCAL conservatives, awesome as that may be. And NOT just FOREIGN POLICY hawks, although that is undoubtedly awesome. There are deep social conservatives in the Republican party who might even be to the right on Scott Klusendorf on abortion, and to the right of Jennifer Roback Morse on marriage. I am not kidding.
These new Republicans are not casual about social conservatism, and not even the libertarian Tea Party ones like Rand Paul. And there are SO MANY of them that JUST GOT elected in the November elections. That’s why that they can do things like this. They more of them we elect, the more we will see bills like this.
“Our new majority has pledged to listen and focus on the will of the people. We’ve begun to carry out this commitment by cutting our own budget and repealing the job-destroying health care law.
“Today we’re here to talk about keeping another commitment to the people – and that is ensuring their tax dollars are never used to fund abortions.
“A ban on taxpayer funding of abortion is the will of the people and ought to be the law of the land. But current law – particularly as enforced by this Administration – does not reflect the will of the people.
“Last year, we listened to the people through our America Speaking Out project, and they spoke out on this issue – loudly and clearly. So we included it in our Pledge to America, and today we begin to make good on that commitment.
“Congressman Chris Smith has introduced bipartisan legislation that codifies the Hyde Amendment and other similar policies by permanently applying a ban on taxpayer funding of abortion across all federal programs.
“This common-sense legislation reflects the will of the people and deserves the support of the House. It is one of our highest legislative priorities. As such, I have directed that it receive the designation of H.R. 3. I appreciate Congressman Smith’s steadfast leadership on this critical issue.”
And it’s not just abortion providers like Planned Parenthood that get federal funding, either. It’s the United Nations, too. (H/T Mary)
Excerpt:
By funneling tens of millions of dollars to organizations such as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which support China’s brutal One Child Policy, the United States and other Western countries are “accomplices” to “murder on a massive scale,” said the Director of China Aid in an interview this week.
[...]In general, each family is permitted to have only one child. When a couple wants to have their first child, Fu explained, they are “required to get a pregnancy permission card – a yellow card before your wife can legally get pregnant.” If a woman is pregnant without the permission card, she is arrested and forced to have an abortion.The “massive practice” of forced sterilization and abortion has a huge impact on China. Last year, said Fu, there was “a report of about 20 million babies, which were aborted … abortion being performed as late as nine months.”
[...]Fu attests to the fact that a significant portion of the funding for abortions in China comes from international organizations, including The United Nations Population Fund.
“The U.S.,” said Fu, ”provides funding and 40 million dollars goes to China to assist in carrying out this One Child Policy. So, unfortunately, the Western countries are accomplices to this policy.“
“It’s really time for us to get past our apathy about it as an American people, and really start to take that seriously. These abuses with the One Child Policy and the factories are really going on in real life … These are actually really happening! My message is always to the American people: get over the apathy and do something. We have to hold our own government and the Chinese government accountable for these things,” said Mason.
A lot of people talk about restricting abortion. They talk and talk and talk about it. And then when election day came around in 2008, some of them voted for the most pro-abortion President ever. Well, some real pro-lifers decided to fix that in 2010. And now Republican John Boehner has a mandate from the people to change the laws of this country to discourage the wholesale slaughter of innocent life. Less taxpayer funding for abortion means fewer abortions. It’s a start. If the Republicans win the Presidency in 2012, maybe Boehner can finish it.
Republicans are pro-life
Mary also sent me this post from Scott Klusendorf on pro-life pastors and abortion and this post from Randy Alcorn on pastors and abortion.
Everyone on the left thinks that just because THEY don’t care about the unborn then no one cares. But that’s not true for conservatives. We really have thought this issue through, and we really do care.
UPDATE: From Canbuhay.
Martha Roby:
Ann Marie Buerkle:
Ann Marie Buerkle was a spokeswoman and then leader of local pro-life groups in New York and is now one of at least 15 pro-life congresswomen.
Hundreds of thousands of pro-lifers protested the 37th anniversary of legalized abortion Friday, buoyed by polls and a recent Republican victory in Massachusetts that they said show public opinion may be finally swinging in their favor.
[...]Organizers estimated the crowd at the March for Life to number at least 200,000. A “virtual” march on Washington, hosted by Americans United for Life at http://www.virtualmarchforlife.com, attracted 74,925 “avatars” by late Friday afternoon. The March for Life marks the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.
After two hours of speeches from a variety of political and religious leaders, the mostly college-aged crowd marched up Constitution Avenue to the Supreme Court under hazy skies in 45-degree weather.
Twenty-one members of Congress each took the podium to celebrate the current woes surrounding the Senate version of President Obama’s health care bill, which opponents say would expand federally subsidized abortion. Due to the surprise election Tuesday of Massachusetts state Sen. Scott Brown to the late Edward M. Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat, Democrats are now one vote shy of the supermajority needed to overcome Republican filibusters.
“The health care bill is dead,” said Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama, an oncologist who last month switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party. “They may be able to break off a piece or two but it was fundamentally bad.”
“There’s been a huge turn in the country,” said Rep. Chris Smith, New Jersey Republican. “Huge majorities are in our favor especially on funding of abortion. A lot of members of Congress have realized that the numbers have shifted.”
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Spokane, Wash., spoke to the crowd with her 2-year-old son, Cole, draped across her shoulder. Saying the little boy has Down Syndrome, “We get to press the restart button and get the health bill we want,” she said.
Representative Mike Pence had a nice op-ed on his web site about the pro-life issue. He first reviews everything that Obama is doing to increase the number of abortions that have occured in the United States (50 million since Roe v. Wade), but then he switches to a diffferent line of argument.
Excerpt:
William Wilberforce, a central figure in the fight to end the slave trade in Great Britain, understood that to win a moral victory he needed to persuade the hearts and minds of the people, as well as end public policies that supported the objectionable trade. Wilberforce defeated the slave trade by bringing an end to the financial gains it enjoyed.
If we are going to end abortion we must bring an end to abortion profiteering. And we cannot end abortion in this country so long as the American taxpayer is forced to be the largest financial supporter of abortion.
Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in America, performed more than 305,000 abortions in 2007. That same year, Planned Parenthood received hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, either through federal, state or local assistance. This is unacceptable. Now is the time to deny federal funding to Planned Parenthood.
To that end, I will continue to introduce legislation in Congress that will restrict any federal family planning funds from going to organizations like Planned Parenthood that promote or perform abortions. I will seize every opportunity to bring this proposal before Congress until the people’s House respects the will of the American people and ends taxpayer subsidized abortion.
William Wilberforce committed his life to a cause that would “extinguish every trace of this bloody traffic” in human life and said that “posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonor to this country.”
A noble plan, but so far the Democrats keep voting him down. I like his plan because you often hear from some people that we need to transfer more wealth to women who want to become single mothers. But extra-marital sex and single motherhood is not good for children, either. Instead, we need to stop government from subsidizing irresponsible sexual activity. That’s my personal view, anyway. I’m chaste, and one the secondary reasons why I am chaste is so that I do not hurt women or children.
I think that cutting subsidies for Planned Parethood and making women pay every penny for their abortions may cause them to think twice. It also may be a good idea to pass a 300% sales tax on abortions and to force the father to pay for half of the abortion, too. That would get parents involved, for sure. If there’s no more money in it for Planned Parenthood, and no political contributions from Planned Parenthood for the Democrats, then abortion would stop pretty fast.
You can see Mike Pence’s speech here:
I must note that Mike Pence is an evangelical Protestant Christian, as am I, and as is William Wilberforce. But evangelical Protestant Christians are not the only ones who are pro-life.
Check out this quote from the Washington Times article I linked to above:
Three Orthodox Jewish rabbis came on stage to blow a shofar — a ram’s horn used to welcome in the Jewish New Year — and encourage listeners to have more children.
“The selfish liberals are not reproducing,” Brooklyn Rabbi Yehuda Levin said. “We Orthodox Jews are bringing in 7-14 children into a family. You too can have a holy baby.”
Speaking of the nation’s governors, “We have enough killing pharaohs in power,” he said. “Who’ll be the Moses to let our babies grow?”
Today we recognize the 37th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which affirms every woman’s fundamental constitutional right to choose whether to have an abortion, as well as each American’s right to privacy from government intrusion. I have, and continue to, support these constitutional rights.
I also remain committed to working with people of good will to prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and families, and strengthen the adoption system.
Today and every day, we must strive to ensure that all women have limitless opportunities to fulfill their dreams.
When a baby is detected growing in a mother’s womb, a mother is confronted with a serious choice of whether or not to kill her baby. Uppermost in a mother’s consideration must be the high probability that a child will limit her opportunities to fulfill her dreams. That being the case, it is perfectly acceptable to torture and kill the child via a variety of currently employed methods. Priorities are priorities.
I think we as Christians need to make sure that we vote to protect innocent children from violence, although that is NOT what many of us did in the 2008 election by voting for Obama. Please talk to your neighbors about abortion. (See links at the bottom of this post to learn how). By the way, Neil Simpson has a nice post up about whether the Bible supports abortion.
International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) recently released its annual performance report for 2008-2009. Despite an economic downturn and a slight decrease in annual income, the abortion industry giant boasts of increased activity across all of its lines of work — including condom distribution, advocacy and abortion services.
IPPF’s overall income for 2008 was US$119.7 million, down from over $120 million the previous year.
[...]IPPF intends to focus its future work on securing sustainable funding for its activities by capitalizing on statements made by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on family planning funding, and on the Obama administration’s repeal of the Mexico City policy so that funding to “international sexual and reproductive health organizations” will be restored.
IPPF views these developments as part of a “growing international interest” which “needs to be seized upon in order to drive forward the agenda for universal access to reproductive health.” IPPF will be focusing on using the “emerging momentum around maternal health to secure new support and financing” to fund abortion growth.
Beyond its traditional emphasis on abortion, contraception, family planning and advocacy, Executive Director Gill Greer indicates IPPF will expand into new areas such as “population dynamics” and “climate change” to garner increased funding.
Abortion is big business. Every abortion represents revenue that can be used to influence lawmakers.
The Mexican president shut down a money-losing state-owned electrical utility, taking a labor union down with it. The union is howling, but the shutdown is one of the best things to happen to Mexico.
For months, the SME union had been trying to intimidate Felipe Calderon into continuing to subsidize the Luz y Fuerza del Centro electrical distributor, even as its $16 billion in revenue didn’t come close to its $32 billion in salaries and pension costs.
And why not? The union had done the same thing to all the other reform-minded Mexican presidents and saw all of them back off.
But it didn’t have a clue about Calderon, a former energy minister who on Sept. 24 warned the union to cut costs or else. The union ignored the warning and tried to intimidate Calderon with political tactics, whipping up fear that he intended to privatize the utility. Calderon had a better idea: shut down the utility.
The stunning decision to disband the company and lay off 44,000 workers effectively ends the SME union.
Yes, he’s a conservative.
Check out the effects:
It took just hours for Mexico’s peso to rise on news that a huge financial burden had been lifted from the government. Luz y Fuerza del Centro was a money pit that cost the government $42 billion a year in subsidies. Analysts said the shutdown would save $25 billion — enough to enable the government to scrap a planned 2% tax hike.
The improved fiscal picture will keep interest rates in place and avert a ratings downgrade. All of this increases Mexican purchasing power, helps the government finance itself and releases money for lending and investment in a new economy.
Read the whole article. He sent in troops.
It’s a proud day for Mexico. Like Canada, Mexico is on the way up. But the United States is on the way down. Canada elected a conservative, and Mexico elected a conservative. Only the United States was blind and ignorant enough to elect a radical socialist.
One other thing: I was having lunch with one of my agnostic co-workers today, who was following this story. He was concerned that Mexico would start up a new company to take the place of the old, inefficient one. But that is not the case. The Mexican government has decided to liquidate the inefficient company and pass its customers to another firm.
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