Tag Archives: Trent Franks

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Obama supports late-term abortions, born-alive abortions and sex-selection abortions

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Unborn baby scheming about exposing Obama's abortion record
Unborn baby scheming about exposing Obama’s abortion record

First, late-term abortions, as reported by the Weekly Standard.

Excerpt:

The Washington Post reports that President Obama is running his reelection campaign as a “culture warrior,” trying to cast his opponents as extremists on such issues as abortion in the case of rape and requiring religious institutions to pay for contraception. But could Obama’s own extremism on abortion come back to bite him?

During a 2003 press conference, Barack Obama indicated that he thought abortion should be legal in all situations, even late in pregnancy:

OBAMA: “I am pro-choice.”

REPORTER: “In all situations including the late term thing?”

OBAMA: “I am pro-choice. I believe that women make responsible choices and they know better than anybody the tragedy of a difficult pregnancy and I don’t think that it’s the government’s role to meddle in that choice.”

In another interview, Obama said: “I voted no on the late-term abortion ban, not because I don’t recognize that these are painful issues but because I trust women to make these decisions.”

And second, on abortions where the baby is born alive (infanticide):

When Obama opposed a bill to stop infanticide as a member of the Illinois legislature, he said he did so because it reportedly contained language that would have contravened the Roe v. Wade decision. However, documents uncovered during the 2008 election show Obama has misrepresented his position.

Obama, as a member of the Illinois Senate, opposed a state version of the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, a measure that would make sure babies who survive abortions are given proper medical care.

It also protected babies who were “aborted” through a purposeful premature birth and left to die afterwards.

On the federal level, pro-abortion groups withdrew their opposition to the bill after a section was added making sure it did not affect the status of legal abortions in the United States. Ultimately, the bill was approved on a unanimous voice vote with even leading pro-abortion lawmakers like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry backing it.

And finally, Obama very likely supports sex-selection abortions.

Excerpt:

President Barack Obama appears to oppose the ban on sex-selection abortions that the House of Representatives debated yesterday and will be voting on today.

ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper posted a new report indicating President Obama opposes the bill to prohibit performing or coercing abortions to eliminate unborn babies of an undesired sex. Tapper raised the question at Wednesday’s White House press briefing, but did not receive a respond to his question about Obama’s position.

[…]White House deputy press secretary Jamie Smith told him in a statement: “The Administration opposes gender discrimination in all forms, but the end result of this legislation would be to subject doctors to criminal prosecution if they fail to determine the motivations behind a very personal and private decision.   The government should not intrude in medical decisions or private family matters in this way.”

National Right to Life legislative director Douglas Johnson was upset to learn Obama opposes the common-sense bill, telling LifeNews:  “It is appalling, but not surprising, that President Obama now stands with the pro-abortion political committees and his Hollywood donors, rather than with the coerced women, and their unborn daughters, who are victimized in sex-selection abortions.”

The Democrat Party also  supports sex-selection abortions. Their view is that the mere fact that an unborn child is female is sufficient reason to kill that child. Is that pro-women? What could be more discriminatory and anti-women than that?

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War on women: Obama and Democrats oppose ban on sex-selection abortion

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From Life News.

Excerpt:

President Barack Obama appears to oppose the ban on sex-selection abortions that the House of Representatives debated yesterday and will be voting on today.

ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper posted a new report indicating President Obama opposes the bill to prohibit performing or coercing abortions to eliminate unborn babies of an undesired sex. Tapper raised the question at Wednesday’s White House press briefing, but did not receive a respond to his question about Obama’s position.

[…]White House deputy press secretary Jamie Smith told him in a statement: “The Administration opposes gender discrimination in all forms, but the end result of this legislation would be to subject doctors to criminal prosecution if they fail to determine the motivations behind a very personal and private decision.   The government should not intrude in medical decisions or private family matters in this way.”

National Right to Life legislative director Douglas Johnson was upset to learn Obama opposes the common-sense bill, telling LifeNews:  “It is appalling, but not surprising, that President Obama now stands with the pro-abortion political committees and his Hollywood donors, rather than with the coerced women, and their unborn daughters, who are victimized in sex-selection abortions.”

And Mary sent me this article from Life News.

Excerpt:

Democrats in Congress peddled a curious reason for opposing a ban on sex-selection abortions that target girl babies with abortion because they are not boys parents may prefer. They said the ban was anti-woman and part of the so-called “War on Women” Republicans are allegedly waging.

During today’s debate on the Congressional bill to ban sex-selection abortions, Michigan Democrat John Conyers said the ban on sex-selection abortions “tramples the rights of women.”

“It limits a woman’s right to choose and jeopardizes her access to safe, legal medical care,” he claimed.

[…]Rep. Trent Franks, an Arizona Republican, said during the debate:  “A minority baby is currently five times more likely to be aborted than a white baby, and nearly half of all black babies are aborted, with over 70 percent of abortion clinics being located in predominantly minority neighborhoods.”

In a letter Wednesday, Americans United for Life urged House members to “stop a real war on women — sex selection abortions” by supporting the legislation.

“This is a real war on women,” said AUL leader Charmaine Yoest. “And it is wrong when we turn a blind eye to women being eliminated in the womb simply for being a member of the female sex.”

“There is nothing pro-woman about killing a baby girl because she is female, and putting her mother’s health and safety at risk in the process,” she said. “Americans—whether pro-life or pro-abortion—overwhelmingly oppose this barbaric practice that undermines the dignity of the human person and agree that sex-selection abortion should be illegal.  AULA calls on all Members of the House to vote for PRENDA to stop the war on women yet to be born.”

Congressman Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, drove the point home about how and why the bill is pro-woman.

“For most of us, Mr. Speaker, “it’s a girl” is cause for enormous joy, happiness and celebration.  But in many countries—including our own—it can be a death sentence.   Today, the three most dangerous words in China and India are: it’s a girl.  We can’t let that happen here,” he explained. “By now most people know that the killing of baby girls by abortion or at birth is pervasive in China due to the One Child policy and a preference for sons.  China and India are “missing” tens of millions of daughters.”

If you would like to see what abortion looks like, just click this link.

Should we really be celebrating this practice? It seems to me that it’s worse than slavery. Losing your liberty is really really bad. Losing your life is worse. Especially when you haven’t done anything wrong. Let’s be more responsible with our alcohol consumption and sexual behavior so that we don’t have to kill any innocent unborn children. Fun is nice, but not if it means that someone innocent has to die just so we can have fun.

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Republican candidates should push incremental pro-life measures

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If Republicans want to stand out from Democrats on social issues, then we have to find ways to make our pro-family, pro-marriage, pro-child positions resonate with the public at large. For example, on the pro-life issue, we should not be focused on outright bans on abortion, but instead on incremental measures to restrict abortion accessibility.

Here are some ideas for incremental pro-life measures:

  • Outlaw sex-selection abortions
  • Require parental consent before having an abortion
  • Require that additional information be provided to women considering abortions (e.g. – mandatory sonogram)
  • Eliminate subsidies for abortion providers
  • Require all private insurance plans to have a version of each plan offered that does not cover abortion
  • Restrict the most vicious methods of abortion, such as partial birth abortion
  • Recognizing unborn children who are harmed during a crime as victims of that crime
  • Outlaw abortions after the time when the unborn child gains the ability to feel pain
  • Increase the tax deduction for children
  • Reward adults with tax incentives for getting married and staying married

Let’s take a closer look at the first item in the list.

Consider this front page story from today in Canada’s National Post newspaper. The title is “Canada is haven for parents seeking sex-selective abortions:  medical journal”. Canada is the only country in the developed world that has no law governing abortion. They are strongly pro-abortion.

But consider this excerpt from the article:

An editorial in a major Canadian medical journal Monday urges doctors to conceal the gender of a fetus from all pregnant women until 30 weeks to prevent sex-selective abortion by Asian immigrants.

A separate article in the same issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal warns that Canada has become “a haven for parents who would terminate female fetuses in favor of having sons” due to advanced prenatal testing and easy access to abortion.

“Female feticide happens in India and China by the millions, but it also happens in North America in numbers large enough to distort the male to female ratio in some ethnic groups,” said the editorial by interim editor-in-chief Rajendra Kale.

While few studies have been done to assess how frequent the practice may be among immigrant communities in Canada, the editorial points to research that suggests sex-selection is more common among immigrants from India, China, Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines who already have at least one daughter.

It cites U.S. census data from 2000 that shows male-biased sex ratios among U.S.-born children of Asian parents, and a study of 65 Indian women in the U.S. from 2004-2009 that showed 89% of them terminated pregnancies with female fetuses.

Kale told AFP he believes that several hundred sex-selective abortions take place in Canada each year.

[…]Kale’s controversial proposal was welcomed by conservative groups but opposed by the pro-choice advocates who warned that the debate extends much further than sex-selective abortion in minority groups.

Canadians are more liberal on social issues than Americans, yet they nevertheless oppose sex-selection abortions. According to a recent poll, 92% of Canadians oppose sex-selection abortions. It therefore seems reasonable  for Republicans to pass a bill to ban sex-selection abortions.

And in fact the “PRENDA” bill that Trent Franks introduced that does just that.

Excerpt:

A U.S. congressman has reintroduced legislation that would ban sex-selection or race-based abortions. Congressman Trent Franks, an Arizona Republican who is a member of the House Judiciary Committee, has brought back the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act.

The measure would prohibit knowingly performing or financing sex-selection or race-based abortions.

[…]“[T]he Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, or “PRENDA,” … restricts sex-selection abortion and race-selection abortion, and the coercion of a woman to obtain either. The woman seeking an abortion is exempted from prosecution, while abortion providers are held to account,” wrote Franks in a letter to colleagues on Monday.

[…][A] 2006 poll showed a majority of Americans would likely support the bill. A 2006 Zogby International poll shows that 86% of the American public desires a law to ban sex selection abortion. The poll surveyed a whopping 30,117 respondents in 48 states.

So the majority of Americans would support this measure.

Now comes the interesting part – the pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood, which receives taxpayer funding to perform abortion procedures, opposes the bill.

Excerpt:

As members prepare to hear from experts on how the sex-selection abortion culture has made its way from nations like China and India to the United States, according to one study, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, ACLU and a total of 30 pro-abortion groups banded together for a letter opposing the legislation, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act.

The claim the bill, sponsored by pro-life Rep. Trent Franks, an Arizona Republican, is “simply more of the same from the anti-choice extremists choice extremists in the House” and they urged a no vote on it.

“[T]he bill will effectively exacerbate already existing disparities by limiting some women’s access to comprehensive reproductive health care and penalizing health care providers,” they allege.

They claim:  “Instead of addressing health disparities and ensuring accessible and culturally competent medical care for all women, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act will further isolate and stigmatize some women — particularly those in the Asian American and Pacific Islander and African American communities — from exercising their fundamental human right to make and implement decisions about their reproductive lives.”

Nancy Northup, President of Center for Reproductive Rights talked about her group’s opposition to the bill with Fox News and said it is an “anti-choice” measure that she claims is a “trumped up bill for a trumped up problem,” and a “ridiculous waste of congressional resources at a time when the U.S. economy is faltering.”

“This bill is a cynical and offensive attempt to evoke race and sex discrimination when actually it’s about taking women’s rights away,” she said.

So I think this is enough to show that abortion can actually be an asset to a Republican candidate. So long as the person is able to focus on incremental measures that are supported by 60% or more of the population, then the pro-life issue would not be a liability in the 2012 election contest. In fact, it could be very useful to have Obama have to go on record as being opposed to a ban on sex-selection abortions. Most voters have no idea exactly how liberal Obama is on the abortion issue. Raising incremental pro-life measures in a debate situation would be a good way to bring out his extremism on the life issue. Candidates like Rick Santorum, who actually have a record of proposing incremental measures, will be particularly effective in making such arguments.

To learn more about the effects of sex-selection abortions in countries that allow it, you can check out this Wall Street Journal article.