Pro-Life Group Says FOCA Bill Would Promote Partial-Birth Abortions 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 26, 2007
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — On the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a national ban on partial-birth abortions, pro-abortion lawmakers in Congress put forward a bill that would have far reaching effects. One pro-life group says the measure would trump the ban and allow partial-birth abortions once again.
Abortion advocates unveiled the so-called "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA) last week — a measure that would enshrine Roe v. Wade into law and nullify virtually all federal and state limitations on abortion.
Those limits include the partial-birth abortion ban and Douglas Johnson, the legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee says its an intended consequence sponsors of the bill readily admit.
"In the interests of truth in advertising, the bill should be renamed the ‘Freedom for Partial-Birth Abortionists Act,’" he said.
So far 71 members of the House and 14 members of the Senate have endorsed their respected versions of the pro-abortion bill, which Rep. Jarrold Nadler of New York has sponsored in the House.
He’s admitted that the FOCA bill "would bar government – at any level — from interfering with a woman’s fundamental right to choose to bear a child, or to terminate a pregnancy."
Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, also acknowledged the change and was more direct in how it would promote partial-birth abortions. In an email to her supporters, she said FOCA "would legislatively reverse the Court’s damaging decision and will enshrine in federal law our right to safe, legal abortion."
Responding to the comments, Johnson said abortion advocates know that the bill will likely not be approved and that President Bush would certainly veto it on the rare chance it got to his desk.
"Those promoting this bill intend to use it as a litmus test for those who seek congressional office, or the White House, and as a fundraising tool," NRLC’s Douglas Johnson explained. "They know they cannot enact anything like this, so long as a pro-life president is in the White House."
That points to the need for the pro-life movement to re-elect a pro-life president to replace Bush in 2008.
Johnson also said the bill would do more than just codify Roe v. Wade into federal law.
He said the measure would do more because it also would go further than Roe, invalidating all of the major types of pro-life laws that have been upheld by the Supreme Court in the decades since Roe.
"The claim that the bill would ‘codify Roe’ is just a marketing gimmick by the proponents," explained Johnson. "The sponsors hope that journalists and legislators will lazily accept that vague shorthand phrase – but it is very misleading."
"The references to Roe in the bill are in non-binding, discursive clauses," he said. "The heart of the bill is a ban that would nullify all of the major types of pro-life laws that the Supreme Court has said are permissible under Roe v. Wade, including the ban on partial-birth abortions and bans on government funding of abortion."
