By Dave Andrusko
In the days, weeks, and months to come, we will look back at today and see that important groundwork was laid for eventual success.
As you already know from reading National Right to Life’s Alert, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (H.R. 3541) did not pass the House, not because it didn’t have a strong majority, but because the 246 votes it garnered was short of the two-thirds vote required under the fast-track procedure utilized today.
In voting against H.R. 3541 (and seconding the position of pro-abortion President Obama and Planned Parenthood), what was it that 168 members of Congress were unwilling to put an end to?
Pro-abortionists have their Ph.D.s in obfuscation and misdirection. But you don’t need letters after your name to tell the truth.
They voted in favor of aborting unborn babies BECAUSE they are females. This qualifies as lethal discrimination if there ever was one.
But in that verbal jujitsu that so characterizes the pro-abortion mind, saving unborn babies from what is quite properly called gender genocide is itself supposedly discriminatory. Try telling that to the victims whose bodies are torn limb from limb. I am only half-surprised the pro-abortion lobby isn’t also blaming the babies themselves, but that’s probably just a matter of time.
The line of argument (if what they say can be characterized as an “argument”) runs along numerous lines. Sex-selection abortions don’t occur in the United States; or they only occur rarely; or if they do occur there is good reason; or if they occur you are waging a “war on women” for even bringing these deaths up (never mind that almost ALL the victims are female); and, if none of that works, you hate [fill in the blank].
We are constantly told to even bring up the abortion issue is a loser. Isn’t true, hasn’t been true, and will never be true. But this serves the purposes of reinforcing the sophistry that worrying about brutality of almost incalculable proportions is a “distraction” from “real” issues.
168 members of the House of Representatives and the current President of the United States are now on record. They will use one of the above excuses (or conjure up new ones) to try to deflect attention, but that won’t change anything that Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) talked about so passionately on the floor of the House Wednesday.
By voting against the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, these members of Congress did so in face of evidence that sex-selection abortions ARE taking place in our nation; indeed, that “women cross the border from Canada to obtain sex selection abortions in the United States,” according to a House Judiciary Committee report; and that” sex-selection abortions are oftentimes coerced.”
Moreover, in addition to what took place in the House, Live Action, which does magnificent investigative work, released the second video in a new series titled “Gendercide: Sex-Selection in America.” The new video can be viewed at www.ProtectOurGirls.com. The first undercover video was taken in Texas, the most recent at Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger clinic in New York City.
Once again, Live Action’s video shows a Planned Parenthood employee advising a woman on an early, definitive method to tell the gender of her child in the late first or early second trimester. According to the text of the conversation, provided by Live Action
“So if you were to have what’s called a CVS test, which is, do you know what that is?” she asks, referring to the genetic Chorionic Villus Sampling test. “It’s done between 11 and 13 weeks, so it is a test that you could do now.” CVS tests have a risk of miscarriage of about 1 in 100, which [the social worker] did not mention, and are typically done to test for genetic disorders in a pregnancy.
“[The social worker] also reassures the woman that she can carry her pregnancy farther into term before her abortion. “An abortion at any stage up to 24 weeks is considered a safe procedure,” she asserts. “It’s not that it’s unsafe, or that there’s a lot more risk involved, it’s just there’s more steps involved and it’s just a little more complicated.” Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger Center in New York City does abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy and is the organization’s national headquarters.
“I can tell you that here at Planned Parenthood we believe that it’s not up to us to decide what is a good or a bad reason for somebody to decide to terminate a pregnancy,” [the social worker] adds concerning the woman’s request for a sex-selective abortion. Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards yesterday opposed a ban on sex-selective abortions on the grounds that it would “limit [a woman’s] choices as she makes personal medical decisions.”
“Planned Parenthood has built their abortion empire on their belief that any abortion is a good abortion, even if it is motivated by the very discrimination against women that they claim to abhor,” says Lila Rose, president of Live Action. “Planned Parenthood’s abortion-first mentality leads them to defend targeting baby girls for extermination. When any of Planned Parenthood’s other ideological commitments comes into conflict with their abortion-first mentality, it’s clear that abortion always takes priority.”
And it is crucial to see that what is happening at Planned Parenthood’s abortion clinics is not something they are in the business of stopping. As the New York PPFA clinic social worker said with respect to inquiries about a sex-selection abortion, “I can tell you that here at Planned Parenthood we believe that it’s not up to us to decide what is a good or a bad reason for somebody to decide to terminate a pregnancy.”
That attitude was first made unmistakably clear earlier this week after Live Action’s first video was uploaded on to YouTube. Leslie Kantor, Planned Parenthood vice president for education, quickly responded that “a former staff member serving in an entry-level position did not follow our protocol for providing information and guidance when presented with a highly unusual patient scenario.” Toss an employee under the bus is a response we have seen before.
But, as The Huffington Post’s Laura Bassett wrote, a
“spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Federation of America also told The Huffington Post that the organization condemns seeking abortions on the basis of gender, but its policy is to provide ‘high quality, confidential, nonjudgmental care to all who come into’ its health centers. That means that no Planned Parenthood clinic will deny a woman an abortion based on her reasons for wanting one, except in those states that explicitly prohibit sex-selective abortions (Arizona, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Illinois).”
NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson hit the nail right on the head when he said on Wednesday,
“The gist of Planned Parenthood’s response to the Huffington Post is that sex-selection abortion will be on their clinic menu in every jurisdiction that does not ban it by law — and Tuesday, Planned Parenthood e-mailed U.S. House members a warning that the organization is strongly opposed to the bill to ban sex-selection abortions nationwide.”
Do all pro-lifers wish the House had reached the necessary 2/3rds mark to pass H.R. 3541? Of course.
But the next best thing to passage was to learn exactly whom was where on sex-selection abortions.
As Johnson said today,
“Today’s groundbreaking majority vote was a stepping stone to this bill ultimately becoming law – perhaps after the replacement of some of the lawmakers who today were unwilling to protect victimized women and their unborn daughters from sex-selection abortions, because they were more concerned with maintaining favor with the abortion industry, pro-abortion advocacy groups, and Hollywood donors.”
Your feedback is very important to improving National Right to Life News Today. Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha
