Scott Zipperle

One aspect of the train wreck that is commonly called Obamacare is the provision that allowed Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, with the full support of President Barack Obama, to force companies and individuals to pay for and/or subsidize contraception, sterilizations and abortifacients.  Obvious to all except for the pro-abortion crowd and the Obama Administration, those who are opposed to paying for such life ending procedures and drugs feel it is wrong that the government should force them to either violate their beliefs or pay a large fine or go to jail.  Do they deserve to be protected?

The following is adapted from consciencelaws.org:

Protections of conscience laws ensure that people cannot be forced to facilitate practices or procedures to which they object for reasons of conscience.  These may include abortion, capital punishment, contraception, sterilization, artificial reproduction, euthanasia, assisted suicide, human experimentation, torture, etc.  An adequate protection of conscience law should protect conscientious objectors from coercive hiring or employments practices, discrimination and other forms of punishment or pressure.  It should also include protection of conscience laws and afford varying degrees of protection for conscience objectors.  They may appear in statutes or in the policies of organizations or institutions.

Protection of conscience laws and conscience clauses are needed because powerful interests are inclined to force health care workers and others to participate, directly or indirectly, in morally controversial procedures.  Physicians, nurses and pharmacists and others have been denied employment, dismissed, or penalized because of objections to abortion, contraception or drugs that can act as abortifacients.  The same pressure will almost certainly be applied to force conscientious objectors to participate in reproductive technology, eugenic screening and in euthanasia and assisted suicide, particularly where such things are legal or tolerated.

At the 1984 Mexico City Conference the Reagan Administration established the requirement that the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) provide “concrete assurances that (it) is not engaged in, or does not provide funding for, abortions or coercive family planning programs.”  Concern was highest over UNFPA’s activities in China’s coercive family planning practices.  At the time the Administration reportedly held up $19 million (of $38 million allocated for UNFPA for FY1984) until assurances could be provided it was not going to these nefarious practices.  

Congress enacted the Kemp-Kasten Amendment in 1985 that left it up to the President to determine if an organization or program being funded by UNFPA contributes to coercive abortions or forced sterilizations.  From 1986 through 1993 both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush concluded that the UNFPA was involved in those nefarious practices and thus denied U.S taxpayer funds.  President George H.W. Bush even vetoed the 1989 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill because the Democratic Congress was insisting the U.S. contribute to the UNFPA.

It was not until 1993 that President Clinton, despite massive evidence to the contrary, decided it was okay to fund the UNFPA despite its involvement with coercive abortions and forced sterilizations.  Under the George W. Bush administration, the U.S. withheld funds for the UNFPA from America’s annual contributions to the United Nations due to UNFPA’s complicity in China’s one-child policy enforced through coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization, but the Obama administration and the 111th Congress resumed contributions to UNFPA.

Numerous investigations, both private and Congressional, have found that China continues to this day its practice of age requirements for pregnancy; “birth permits”; mandatory use of IUDs; mandatory sterilization; crippling fines for non-compliance; imprisonment for non-compliance; forced abortion and forced sterilization.  Just last year Feng Jianmei was dragged from her home, beaten, and forced to abort her seven month old unborn child, because it was her second pregnancy.  According to China’s one-child policy, couples living in rural areas may have a second child only if their first is a girl. And those in urban areas are strictly restricted to one child.  Anyone found breaking this law is fined up to $25,000, or forced to comply as in the case of Feng Jianmei.

The Chinese government continues to kill 13 million infants annually through their policies – With the assistance of UNFPA and American taxpayers.   China’s unborn children who are tested and found to be female are at special risk. Nor is this heinous policy limited to the unborn. Female infanticide is routine in rural China.

There have been recent stories that China has “let up” on their one-child policies.  Reggie Littlejohn, president of Womens Rights Without Frontiers,   has gone to China to expose this lie and she got an assist from an unexpected source:

Now a new Xinhua report confirms Chinese officials believe that the “birth policy changes are no big deal.”

Wang Pei’an, deputy director of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, told Xinhua that “the number of couples covered by the new policy is not very large across the country.”

Last week, Littlejohn explained that even if all couples were allowed two children, there is no guarantee that the Chinese Communist Party “will cease their appalling methods of enforcement.”

“Regardless of the number of children allowed, women who get pregnant without permission will still be dragged out of their homes, strapped down to tables and forced to abort babies that they want, even up to the ninth month of pregnancy. It does not matter whether you are pro-life or pro-choice on this issue,” she said. “No one supports forced abortion, because it is not a choice.”

She said instituting a two-child policy also will not end the Chinese government’s “gendercide” in which girls are selectively aborted because of the cultural value of having a boy to maintain the family name.

“Indeed, areas in which two children currently are allowed are especially vulnerable to gendercide, the sex-selective abortion of females,” she said.

Littlejohn cited a 2009 British Medical Journal study of 2005 national census data showing that in nine provinces, for “second order births” where the first child is a girl, 160 boys were born for every 100 girls.

Hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds have been allocated for UNFPA despite their participation in China’s brutal policy.  Cutting off funding to UNFPA will save money, but more importantly it will save lives by discontinuing U.S. taxpayer support for UNFPA.

For more information please visit Womens Rights Without Frontiers.
 

In the 1996 Treehouse of Horror episode of the Simpsons, two aliens, Kang and his sister Kudos, plan to take over the Earth by impersonating Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, the two presidential candidates of that year.  At one point Kang, disguised as Bob Dole, in trying to please a divided crowd declares “abortions for some, miniature American flags for others.” 

Ironically this position really wasn’t that far from the real Bob Dole and even today abortion does seem to still garner some debate within the Republican Party.  However, for some Democratic pro-abortion politicians in the U.S. Congress they will only be happy with unrestricted taxpayer funded abortions for all.  Earlier this week, Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), along with Representatives Judy Chu (D-CA), Lois Frankel (D-FL) and Marcia Fudge (D-OH), introduced the ironically named “Women’s Health Protection Act” (WHaPA).  The WHaPA would override the tremendous success we have seen in the states of protecting women’s health while also putting limitations on abortion.  Not since the abortions for all “Freedom of Choice Act,” supported by President Obama, have we seen a bill that is so anti-mother and child.

Section 4 of the bill is loaded with prohibitions for the states:

Want to require that only licensed doctors perform a surgical abortion?  That would be outlawed under this bill.  Actually this bill would allow an abortionist to designate anyone, regardless of training, to perform the procedure.   This protects the unlicensed abortionist, but not the woman.

Want legislation that restricts the off counter use of a drug that has proven to both harm and kill women when used for a chemical abortion?  That would be illegal under this bill.  This protects the lazy abortionist, but not the women who have ended up dying from unlicensed use of abortion causing drugs.

Want to make sure a doctor can’t “phone in” a chemical abortion?  This legislation would restrict that – allowing presumably anyone designated by an abortion doctor to distribute life ending drugs via the Internet.  Again, this protects the lazy abortionist, but not the women who have ended up dying from unlicensed use of abortion causing drugs.

Want to stop future abortionists like Kermit Gosnell, who butchered two women and countless babies to death?  The “Women’s Health Protection Act” protects Kermit Gosnell, but not the woman.

Want to pass a law that requires an abortionist to report cases of statutory rape for girls as young (or younger) than 12?  Or at least get the permission of a legal guardian to have the invasive and destructive procedure known as abortion?  The “WHaPA” protects the predator, not the 12 year old girl or the parents.

Section 6 then gives Attorney General Eric Holder virtually unrestricted powers to abuse the office against pro-lifers as well as possibly legislators or elected officials who would enforce ANY law that seeks to protect a woman.

This is legislation only Planned Parenthood could love, and love it they do.  The bill has 36 sponsors in the Senate and 60 in the House of Representatives; however, it is clear this is the wish list of many pro-abortion folks in DC.  This bill would not only lead to more abortions, it would also lead to more deaths of both mothers and children. 

All I can say is “Don’t blame me, I voted for Kudos.”