Florida Pro-Life Groups Urge Governor Crist to Sign Abortion-Ultrasound Bill
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 4, 2010
Tallahassee, FL (LifeNews.com) — Florida Governor Charlie Crist is embroiled in a contentious Senate battle where pro-life candidate Marco Rubio has the backing of pro-life groups and Crist had such little support among Republicans that he fled to an independent candidacy.
That’s not stopping two pro-life groups from pulling out all the stops in a lobbying effort to get him to sign a bill that allows women a chance to see an ultrasound of their unborn child before an abortion.
The measure also would make Florida the next state to prohibit federal and state taxpayer funding of abortion in the health care plan Obama signed.
The bill also declares that the public policy of Florida is that a federal, state, or local government may not compel a person to purchase health insurance or health services.
Florida Right to Life emailed its supporters today and urge them to "respectfully" ask Crist to sign the measure the legislature recently approved. It passed the House 76 to 44 and the Senate 23 to 16.
"This bill is very important for the primary reason that it actually does something very good and very powerful," the pro-life group said in the email LifeNews.com obtained. "This bill is the most significant piece of pro-life legislation ever passed in Florida’s history. But it does not become law unless and until the Governor signs it."
"The ACLU and Planned Parenthood are aggressively opposing this bill and have pulled out all the stops with the abortion industry and are lobbying hard to ask Governor Crist to veto it. In just a couple of days, over 1,000 calls were placed into the governors office asking for the good bill to be vetoed," Right to Life said.
"The governor has previously stated he is pro-life. Now he has the opportunity to exercise his pro-life principles and sign this good bill into law," RTL said.
However, he has expressed publicly that he has "very serious concerns" about the bill — though he refused to expand on that statement.
Should Crist listen to the public, he’ll sign the bill to give women more information.
A December 23, 2009 Quinnipiac poll found that 72 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortions.
John Stemberger of the Florida Family Policy Council, is also calling on pro-life advocates to contact Crist.
"This is the most important pro life bill in Florida’s history. I have said this before but apart from reversing Roe v. Wade and our state constitutions abortion provision, this is the most powerful policy change to reduce abortions in Florida,’ he said in an email to LifeNews.com.
"We need to do everything we can to ask voters in Florida to have the governor sign HB 1143 and not veto the bill," he added.
ACTION: Contact Governor Crist at: Phone: (850) 488-7146 or (850)-488-4441, Fax: (850) 487-0801 [email protected]
Related web sites:
Florida Right to Life – https://www.frtl.org
Florida Family Policy Council – https://www.FLFamily.org
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