Pro-Life Advocates: Vote for President Bush
by Steven Ertelt
August 3, 2004
Steven Ertelt is the Editor and CEO of LifeNews.com.
For pro-life advocates, the choice in this November’s presidential elections is clear: President George W. Bush deserves your vote.
President Bush has compiled a record during his first term in office that can only be described as extraordinarily pro-life. And, when it comes to the key battles and judicial appointments over the next four years, only President Bush can be trusted to advance the cause of life.
From the moment President Bush was inaugurated, he began implementing pro-life policy.
On his first day in office, he reinstituted the Mexico City Policy that prohibits taxpayer funding of groups that perform or promote abortions in other countries. Not only did he bring back the policy that Bill Clinton ditched, he expanded it to include any funding given to groups in the entire State Department budget and threatened to veto Congressional legislation that overturned his decision.
ABORTION: On abortion issues, President Bush has been a solid pro-life advocate. He signed the ban on partial-birth abortions — the first legislation since the Roe v. Wade decision that made any type of abortion illegal. Abortion advocates have sued to overturn the ban and the Bush administration has solidly defended it in court.
President Bush also signed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. The measure makes sure that unborn children who survive botched abortions receive proper medical care instead of being left to die or purposefully killed after birth.
Bush has also repeatedly denied federal funds to the UNFPA. This is a UN agency that has supported Chinese population control officials when they force women to have abortions or parents to be sterilized because they want more than one child.
Most importantly, President Bush has nominated pro-life judges to important federal court positions. This signals that he will appoint judges to the Supreme Court that will give the pro-life community a chance to overturn Roe vs. Wade.
HELPING WOMEN: Despite claims by abortion advocates that John Kerry is a better advocate for women, President Bush has done more for pregnant women.
Bush signed what became known as Laci and Conner’s Law that protects pregnant women from tragic acts of violence. When a criminal assaults a pregnant woman and kills or injures her baby, common sense tells most people that there are two victims. The bill recognizes that fact and allows prosecutors to charge criminals for both crimes.
Sadly, John Kerry’s common sense didn’t kick in and he returned to Washington from the campaign trail specifically to vote against the bill, despite letters to him from Laci Peterson’s parents and family backing it.
President Bush also helped pregnant women and their babies obtain medical care during the pregnancy. By allowing unborn children to be covered under the federal CHIP health insurance program, poor pregnant women could qualify for coverage.
Groups that help pregnant women cite the lack of medical insurance as one financial reason that compels some women to have abortions. Several states have signed on to the program and the number of abortions should drop as a result.
EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH: President Bush has been thoroughly blasted for his August 2001 decision to prevent taxpayer funding of any embryonic stem cell research conducted after that point.
While pro-life advocates were divided when the decision was announced, because it would allow funding for research on embryonic stem cells that were obtained prior to his taking office, the pro-life community is united in making sure the policy isn’t expanded.
Members of Congress and biotech lobbyists are working overtime to use your tax dollars to pay to destroy unborn children "left over" from in-vitro fertilization in order to obtain their stem cells. To his credit, President Bush has resisted calls to do that.
HUMAN CLONING: The pro-life community couldn’t have asked for more from President Bush when it comes to opposing human cloning.
The president, on many occasions, vocally backed bills in Congress that would ban both forms of human cloning. The Bush administration also played a key role in promoting a human cloning ban treaty at the United Nations that will receive a second vote next month.
ASSISTED SUICIDE: President Bush has taken a clear stand against assisted suicide and euthanasia.
The Bush administration declared that federally controlled drugs could not be used in assisted suicides in the state of Oregon, the only state where the practice is legal. All of the assisted suicides there have involved such drugs. Attorneys for the president have vigorously defended the decision in court.
President Bush also has spoken out in favor of Terri Schiavo’s family and their efforts to defend their daughter’s right to live.
ABSTINENCE FUNDING: President Bush has strongly supported abstinence-only education. In addition to increasing funding, President Bush, in his January State of the Union address, called on Congress to triple the amount of money it is dedicating to these important programs.
JOHN KERRY: John Kerry’s position on these key issues is clear. He will do everything in his power to advocate abortion and pay for it with your tax dollars. He would overturn the Mexico City Policy, fund the UNFPA, and back legislation that would overturn other pro-life policies.
John Kerry will also use your tax money to destroy human embryos for research, has said he supports assisted suicide, and would likely refuse to expand funding for abstinence education.
Kerry’s commitment to a human cloning ban in Congress and at the UN is doubtful. He has already endorsed a "clone and kill" version that bans human cloning for reproduction but allows unborn children to be cloned and killed in research.
Most importantly, Kerry has repeatedly said he would appoint pro-abortion judges to key federal courts and pro-life advocates have no chance of a pro-life nominee to the Supreme Court during a Kerry administration.
Abortion will be legal, but certainly not safe or rare if John Kerry is elected.
VOTE FOR BUSH: President Bush is a man with clear pro-life values and he has taken every occasion during his presidency to implement public policy that values the dignity and worth of human life.
Important battles to protect human life are still to come and we need a president who will help turn back efforts to expand abortion, human cloning, destructive research, and assisted suicide.
That’s why LifeNews.com is using it’s first-ever editorial to ask you to vote to re-elect President George W. Bush.
Related web sites:
WeVoteProLife Voting Guide – https://www.wevoteprolife.com
