Why The New Abortion Common Ground Bill Matters (Ryan-DeLauro)

I'm glad to see that you listed Third Way among the pro-abortion groups (or, as you prefer, "pro-choice"), since they wrote this bill, under the direction of the capable career pro-abortion activist who heads their "cultural issues" division, Rachel Laser (previously with the abortion-rights project at the National Women's Law Center, and before that general counsel to a major Planned Parenthood affiliate that provides abortions). Their current congressional front man, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), has not cast a pro-life vote since 2006. His most recent abortion-related vote came on July 7, when -- as a member of the House Appropriations Committee -- he voted to repeal the longstanding ban on the use of public funds for elective abortions in the District of Columbia. Even some pro-Roe members of the committee voted to keep the pro-life policy in place, as did (of course) all the real pro-life committee members of both parties, but they were narrowly outvoted by Ryan and the other pro-aborts. If Ryan's position on this issue (which, of course, is also Obama's position) prevails, the result will be that 4,000 or 5,000 babies will be aborted in D.C. during the next fiscal year WITH FUNDS APPROPRIATED BY CONGRESS. (D.C. is a federal enclave, and ALL its funds are appropriated by Congress.) About 1,000 of those are abortions that would not happen in the absence of a public subsidy.

Well, as P.T. Barnum said, you can fool some of the people all of the time.

By the way, Democrats for Life of America had expelled Ryan from its advisory board even before his attack on the D.C. abortion funding ban. That's because his sock-puppet relationship with Planned Parenthood and Third Way had become abundantly evident long before the past week, to those who have been paying attention.

Ryan is also busy trying to undercut the efforts of bona fide pro-life lawmakers, such as Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mi.), to amend the Obama-backed health care bills to remove authority to impose federal abortion coverage mandates and to prevent massive federal subsidies for abortion. Indeed, the Third Way-Planned Parenthood bill was re-introduced yesterday precisely in an attempt to disrupt pro-life lobbying efforts on the health care bill.

By the way, National Right to Life has no position on contraception. Ryan claims otherwise merely to deflect attention away from his poor voting record on abortion and his close colloaborative relationship key pro-abortion groups.

Douglas Johnson
Legislative Director
National Right to Life Committee
Washington, D.C.
Legfederal@aol.com

Documentation on the abortion mandates and abortion subsidies in the Obama-backed health care bills:
http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/Index.html

Rachel Laser short bio:
http://www.thirdway.org/leadership/member/rachel_laser

"We now have a clear division in the pro-life community between those willing to promote contraception as a piece of the puzzle to reduce unintended pregnancies and those who won't."

If contraception were so effective at reducing unintended pregnancies, we wouldn't be looking at this piece of legislation in the year 2009, and we would not have had 50+ MILLION abortions since 1973.

The failure rate of contraceptives, multiplied by the increased number of sexual acts performed in the belief that protection is operative, leads to increased numbers of unintended pregnancies. Anyone capable of basic arithmetic should look at the CDC data in the link below and do the math.

http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/unintendedpregnancy/Contraception.htm

Increased propaganda about the reliability of contraceptives leads to increased sexual activity, and ultimately increased pregnancy.

make that 'their' not 'there'.

Just because the christianists can't spell, doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try to.