Pro-Life Groups Start Effort to Stop President Obama’s Taxpayer Funded Abortions
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 14, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A collection of pro-life groups will hold a news conference in front of the White House on Friday to announce a new effort designed to stop the taxpayer-funded abortions in President Obama’s budget. Obama wants tax-funded of abortions in some circumstances and Congressional Democrats may open up more.
As LifeNews.com has extensively reported, Obama’s budget opens up pro-abortion funding in two instances.
It calls for tax-funded abortions in the District of Columbia by repealing the Dornan amendment that has prevented tax-funded abortion in the nation’s capital for many years.
The abortion rate in Washington, D.C. is already one of the highest in the nation and Obama’s budget’s making Americans fund abortions there would violate his pledge to reduce abortions.
The Obama budget also changes the language governing funding for the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) and loosens it to allow LSC grantees to conduct pro-abortion litigation.
The Family Research Council isn’t content to let those changes stand and has started a national campaign to make it so taxpayers are not "on the hook for funding abortions." The group is concerned that Obama will work with Congressional Democrats to overturn other protections such as the Hyde amendment.
"President Obama has already targeted prohibitions on tax dollars going to pay directly for abortions in our nation’s capitol, and that is only the beginning," FRC president Tony Perkins said. "They want to overturn pro-life ‘riders’ that ensure that U.S. taxpayers are not forced to hand-over their hard-earned dollars to pay for and promote abortion on demand."
"The list of these pro-life laws, which reduce abortion and protect the conscience rights of everyone from health care personnel to taxpayers, is long and includes provisions that have stood for three decades. Even the Hyde amendment is threatened," Perkins adds.
"Repealing it would open the floodgates for forced taxpayer funding of abortions on poor women targeted by ‘family planning’ groups like Planned Parenthood," he said.
FRC has already obtained the signatures of 40,000 Americans who don’t want their tax money to be used to pay for abortions.
The groups participating in the Friday press conference will expand on that effort.
Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition is one of the participants who say that "if President Obama thought speaking at Notre Dame created a political and emotional firestorm wait until he tries to have American citizens pay for abortions and the killing of innocent children."
"We warned during the campaign if Mr. Obama was elected president, he would be the most extremist pro-abortion president in American history and push for taxpayer funded abortions," Mahoney told LifeNews.com. "Sadly after just 100 days, the public is seeing the reality that Barack Obama has now become ‘The Abortion President.’"
Mahoney also warned that Obama and his allies in Congress would go further.
"There is no doubt that President Obama wants to include abortions in his health care plan and have the American public pay for it," he said.
He talked more about the campaign against taxpayer-funded abortions and said it would dovetail with the national debate on putting more government in the health care process.
"On Friday, May 15, we are announcing the start of a national campaign that will embrace social justice and human rights and stand against American tax dollars being used for abortions," he said. "The campaign will begin in July when Speaker Pelosi has indicated that the debate on health care will begin in the House of Representatives."
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