Change is Coming to the Nation's Abortion Laws

by Deal Hudson - December 15, 2008

Reprinted with permission.

Go to Change.gov, the web site of president-elect Obama, and you find a document entitled "Advancing Reproductive Rights and Health in a New Administration." Signed by dozens of pro-abortion groups, including Catholics for Choice, this 55-page document provides an overview of the marching orders for the Obama administration in removing all present restrictions on abortions while dramatically increasing abortion funding.

Anyone who has bought into the myth that Obama is "moderating" his positions should notice that the first section is entitled "Steps for the First Hundred Days." The groups that have spent millions supporting pro-abortion members of Congress, including Obama and Biden, aren't in the mood to wait.

Many of the recommendations are about who gets government support. The pro-abortion groups not only want more money – nearly $3 billion – but they also want the government to stop funding groups who do not share their ideology.

For example, notice the following four recommendations out of the many contained in the document:

• Provide $1 Billion for International Family Planning Programs
• Restore Funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
• Increase Funding for Title X Family Planning Program to $700 Million
• De-fund Abstinence-Only Programs

Taken together, the proposed policies would accomplish three things: 1) treat abortion as a health care right, 2) provide funding for abortions by insurance carriers or the government, and 3) put judges and political appointees in place who will protect the abortion and government-funding from future challenges.

Included in the document is a complete list of vacancies in the Federal Circuit Courts and a two-page list of federal appointees who should be vetted closely on their support for the abortion right. The bulk of these positions are found in the Department of Health and Human Services, the Justice Department, the State Department, and the U. S. Agency for International Development.

The billions being demanded for abortion funding will eventually flow unimpeded through these channels.

Assuming the new administration will do as bidden, Obama's first term will see the end of the Mexico City Policy, the Hyde Amendment, the Kemp-Kasten amendment, the Weldon Amendment, restrictions on emergency contraception (Plan B), the termination of all abstinence-only programs, and reverse the recent HHS regulation protecting pro-life physicians and institutions. Any present obstacle to the abortion right not covered by removing these restrictions, such as state laws requiring parental notification, would be covered by the passage of the Freedom of Choice Act.

The document rarely uses the word "abortion," relying primarily on phrases like the "health care needs of women" and "reproductive health services." Previous policies and legislation restricting abortion and its funding are referred as the product of "ideology" or a "political agenda." Nowhere is there any of the pre-election rhetoric about "dialogue" or "lowering" the number of abortions.

The attitude expressed in "Advancing Reproductive Rights and Health in a New Administration" is anything but moderate – it is imperial, determined, and uncompromising. The fact that it is posted on the official Web site of the Obama-Biden transition is an unambiguous endorsement of its policy recommendations.

I would be surprised if the USCCB was not preparing some sort of statement urging the president-elect to reconsider acting upon the recommendations from the pro-abortion lobby.

Deal W. Hudson is the director of the Morley Institute, and is the former publisher of CRISIS Magazine, a Catholic monthly published in Washington, DC. His articles and comments have been published in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Los Angeles Times, National Review, Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Village Voice, Roll Call, National Journal, The Economist, and by the Associated Press. He appears regularly on television shows such as NBC Nightly News, One-on One with John McLaughlin, C-Span's Washington Journal, News Talk, NET's Capitol Watch, The Beltway Boys, The Religion and Ethics Newsweekly on PBS, and radio programs such as "All Things Considered" on National Public Radio. He was associate professor of Philosophy at Fordham University from 1989 to 1995 and was a visiting professor at New York University for five years. He taught for nine years at Mercer University in Atlanta, where he was chair of the philosophy department. He has published many reviews and articles as well as four books: Understanding Maritain: Philosopher and Friend (Mercer, 1988); The Future of Thomism (Notre Dame, 1992); Sigrid Undset On Saints and Sinners (Ignatius, 1994); and Happiness and the Limits of Satisfaction (Rowman & Littlefield, 1996). His autobiography, An American Conversion (Crossroad, 2003), is available from Amazon.com.