FOCA

Note: This article is obviously obsolete, and I ought to write a new one about the (disastrous!) real results of Obama's presidency on the "reproductive choice" ie "massacre of innocents" front. Nevertheless, it was a good article.

As a rather amusing aside, when this article was originally printed in the Georgetown Federalist, the editor removed my formatting in the first part, thus making it appear that the bits about Obama were in the actual text of the Book of Revelation.

A Call to Action: Being Pro-Life Under Obama


“The locusts…have tails like scorpions, and stings, and their power of hurting men for five months lies in their tails…The first woe has passed; behold two woes are still to come. Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I head a voice… saying behold: the one whom they call Obama will succeed to the presidency and in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death will fly from them…

It is tempting for pro-lifers to see an Obama presidency as a catastrophe, and easy to succumb to Apocalyptic visions of women forced to be sterilized, doctors of faith forced to choose between killing the unborn and ceasing to practice medicine, and the Catholic Church’s pro-life efforts steamrollered by Planned Parenthood’s radical agenda. But, can it really be all that bad? In the words of Sarah Palin, “you betcha!”

Make no mistake, the Obama presidency is a death knoll for much of what Pro-lifers have worked to establish over the past thirty-five years. Obama, who has, according to Planned Parenthood’s president Cecile Richards, been communicating with the radical pro-choice organization almost daily since the election, has promised make signing the Freedom of Choice Act the first thing he will do as President.

The Freedom of Choice Act would encourage freedom like Orwell’s Ministry of Peace encouraged peace. FOCA would force all Americans to fund abortions through taxes, wipe all existing restraints on abortion from the books and deny Americans the freedom to craft laws to regulate abortion in any way. This means no more parental consent laws, no more requirement that abortionists be licensed physicians, no more freedom of conscience for doctors and nurses who do not wish to participate in abortions, no more telling women about the potential risks of abortion, no more partial-birth abortion bans, no more protection for infants born alive after abortion attempts, no more funding for Pregnancy Aid Centers that provide free counseling and enormous amounts of material assistance to pregnant and parenting mothers and, possibly, no more Catholic health care. No other industry in the country has this blanket exemption from regulation.

Why should every citizen be upset about this? Because the Catholic Church runs almost 600 hospitals and over 400 clinics, which together served nearly 90 million Americans, many of them in poverty, in 2007 alone. And the U.S. bishops, who have called FOCA “an attack on the free exercise of…religion,” are already talking about the possibility of shutting down these hospitals, or at least their Obstetrics departments, if Obama signs FOCA into law. According to their statement, “[FOCA] would threaten Catholic health care institutions and Catholic Charities. It would be an evil law that would further divide our country.” A threat to Catholic health care is a threat to all health care. One cannot fail to see the irony: the man who made health care one of the key talking points of his campaign may very well wreak havock on the industry.

In addition to FOCA we have the re-funding of the United Nations Fund for Population Assistance to fear. The Government’s current policy is to not fund abortions overseas, including, of course, forced abortions. This includes restricting funding to UNFPA, which has participated in forced abortions and forced sterilizations, most notably as part of China’s one-child policy. But Obama’s buddy Planned Parenthood wants to refund UNFPA, and he is likely to comply.

These are some of the most drastic potential problems that pro-lifers will face in the next four years, but this list is by no means exhaustive. So, should pro-lifers throw in the towel now? Absolutely not. Rather, we need to get smarter, and take advantage of the allies we have in power. Democrats for Life, who are working to change their party from within, celebrated victory in five of their races on election night. Feminists for Life, possibly the most liberal-friendly pro-life organization out there, may be able to make headway in the coming years as well, most importantly with their Elizabeth Cady Stanton Act. The Elizabeth Cady Stanton Act would ensure that pregnant and parenting students have the resources they need to make the best decisions they can for themselves and their children.

And so the fight goes on. Pro-lifers must not see this as a time to despair, but as a call to action. Those on the front lines of the battle to defend the sanctity of human life against the encroaching culture of death will need our help more than ever before.