Catholics : Step Up or Step Aside

I begged. I pleaded. I prayed. I asked Americans to vote for life, and sadly millions of Catholics put life issues back into the deep recesses of their clouded minds. You can make excuses, call me names and pontificate all that you want about how it isn't about 'one issue' - and I will agree with you on the latter. It is about fifty million issues, all infants in various stages of development ripped to shreds from their first home - their mother's womb in the name of convenience.

Now the American Bishops are calling you into service. Are you up to it?

President Obama stated as Candidate Obama that passing the FOCA was going to be a top priority for him if elected to the Presidency.

"The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing that I'd do." -- Senator Barack Obama, speaking to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, July 17, 2007

If you believe he is a man of his word, you must act now.

Here is the Senate version of the FOCA. Here is the House version of the FOCA.

Among the more than 550 federal and state laws that FOCA would nullify are:

• Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003

• Hyde Amendment (restricting taxpayer funding of abortions)

• Restrictions on abortions performed at military hospitals

• Restrictions on insurance coverage for abortion for federal employees

• Informed consent laws

• Waiting periods

• Parental consent and notification laws

• Health and safety regulations for abortion clinics

• Requirements that licensed physicians perform abortions

• “Delayed enforcement” laws (banning abortion when Roe v. Wade is overturned and/or the authority to restrict abortion is returned to the states)

• Bans on partial-birth abortion

• Bans on abortion after viability. FOCA’s apparent attempt to limit post-viability abortions is illusory. Under FOCA, post-viability abortions are expressly permitted to protect the woman’s “health.” Within the context of abortion, “health” has been interpreted so broadly that FOCA would not actually proscribe any abortion before or after viability.

• Limits on public funding for elective abortions (thus, making American taxpayers fund a procedure that many find morally objectionable)

• Limits on the use of public facilities (such has public hospitals and medical schools at state universities) for abortions

• State and federal legal protections for individual healthcare providers who decline to participate in abortions

• Legal protections for Catholic and other religiously-affiliated hospitals who, while providing care to millions of poor and uninsured Americans, refuse to allow abortions within their facilities -- Americans United for Life

FOCA would automatically overturn state abortion reporting requirements in all 50 states, 44 states' laws concerning parental involvement, 40 states' laws on restricting later-term abortions, 46 states' conscience protection laws for individual health care providers, 27 states' conscience protection laws for institutions, 38 states' bans on partial-birth abortions, 33 states' laws on requiring counseling before an abortion, and 16 states' laws concerning ultrasounds before an abortion.

Contact your Representatives and Senators NOW before this bill goes any further.

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If you reside in New York, please see this old Ponderings entry on the New York Reproductive Health and Privacy Prevention Act. Eliot Spitzer fell from his post as our Governor amid scandal yet there are many who are fighting for this proposal to become law in our state. Did you know that according to NARAL Pro-Choice New York, New Yorkers were 'trailblazers' in the pro-abortion *ahem*, 'pro-choice' movement? I guess they want us to celebrate that New York had legal abortion three years prior to Roe v. Wade being passed.

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According to NARAL's web site (no, you're not getting a link for that one), seven states (California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Nevada and Washington) have legislation on the books similar to FOCA.

• In Maryland , FOCA-type legislation has been on the books since 1991. According to Planned Parenthood's Alan Guttmacher Institute, the abortion rate in the United States DECREASED nine percent since 2000 to 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age in 2005. By contrast, the state of Maryland in 2005 produced a rate of 31.5 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age, an INCREASE of eight percent since 1991.
• Other states with similar FOCA laws on the books show abortion rates larger than the national average of 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age:
• California has a rate of 27.1 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age. Abortions in California represent 17.3 of all abortions in the United States .
• Connecticut has a rate of 23.6 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age. The rate has increased 12% since 2000, when it was 21.1 abortions per 1,000 women.
• Hawaii has a rate of 21.8 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age.
• Nevada 's rate is 27.0 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age.

--- Family Research Council

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I confess to almighty God,

and to you, my brothers and sisters,

that I have sinned through my own fault,

in my thoughts and in my words,

in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do;

and I ask blessed Mary, ever virgin,

all the angels and saints,

and you, my brothers and sisters,

to pray for me to the Lord our God.

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From Blessed Mother Teresa ~ "What is taking place in America," she said, "is a war against the child. And if we accept that the mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another."

"Any country that accepts abortion, is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what it wants."