"Issuing its first abortion-related decision under new Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the Supreme Court refused yesterday to block the court-ordered transport of a female prison inmate to an outside clinic for an abortion."

"The court’s two-sentence order capped five tense days of litigation. The woman, now 16 weeks pregnant, was battling a new Missouri policy forbidding prisons to assist women seeking to terminate their pregnancies, as corrections officials had done in seven previous cases during the last eight years."

"Late Friday night, Justice Clarence Thomas, who handles emergency applications from the judicial circuit that includes Missouri, had intervened at the state’s request to stop the transfer of the prisoner – referred to in the lawsuit as ‘Jane Roe’ – to a Planned Parenthood office in St. Louis on Saturday. Over the weekend, however, Thomas referred the case to the other eight justices, resulting in the decision announced yesterday. …"

"[T]he order does suggest that, under Roberts, a majority of the court was not inclined to rush into a new abortion battle, even when implored to do so by a state where the anti-abortion movement is particularly strong. The order put renewed attention on the court and abortion cases just as the Senate plans confirmation hearings on White House counsel Harriet Miers, who President Bush has nominated to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. She has been the swing vote on key abortion decisions in recent years, and Democratic senators have said they will question Miers on her views on abortion. …

"Also under the law, which was adopted in 1986, no state money, employees, or facilities are to be used ‘for the purpose of encouraging or counseling a woman to have an abortion not necessary to save her life.’

"Gov. Matt Blunt (R) said yesterday that he is ‘extremely disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decision’ and added: ‘The decision is highly offensive to traditional Missouri values and is contrary to state law, which prohibits taxpayer dollars from being spent to facilitate abortions.’

"Previously, Blunt had praised Thomas’s order delaying Roe’s release, contrasting it with previous decisions in the case by ‘activist judges.’ " Source: Charles Lane, The Washington Post, 10/18/05, p. A18

"At least on the surface, [Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel A.] Alito’s record as an appeals court judge contains something for everyone. In 1991, he voted to uphold a Pennsylvania law that would have required married women to notify their husbands before getting an abortion. In 1995, however, he cast a deciding vote on a three-judge panel to strike down what abortion rights advocates saw as Pennsylvania’s onerous regulations on federally funded abortions for victims of incest or rape. And in 2000, he concurred in a ruling that struck down a New Jersey ban on the late-term procedure called partial-birth abortion by opponents. …

"As for Alito’s vote to strike down Pennsylvania’s rules on abortions funded by Medicaid, conservatives dismiss that as a ruling that turned on the finer points of administrative law. ‘It can’t be characterized as an abortion ruling on the merits,’ said Jan LaRue, chief counsel of Concerned Women for America, which opposes Roe. …

"Strictly speaking, the Roe debate is not about whether abortion should be legal or illegal. The Roe decision struck down all state prohibitions on abortion, so overturning it would simply make it possible for states to ban abortion again – but not mandatory that they do so.

"In addition, replacing Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who supports Roe, with an anti-Roe justice would not create a majority on the court for overturning Roe. Rather, the vote count would still be at least 5 to 4 in favor of the basic abortion right recognized in the decision because Justices John Paul Stevens, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer support it. …

"In the 1995 case, Blackwell v. Knoll, the issue before a panel of three judges was how far Pennsylvania could go in regulating abortions paid for by Medicaid.

"Congress had forbidden Medicaid from paying for abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or a danger to the life of the woman. Pennsylvania wanted proof that women had first reported the alleged rape or incest, or, in the case of a threat to a woman’s life, a certification from a doctor other than the one about to perform the abortion.

"Alito co-signed an opinion by Judge Robert E. Cowen holding that Pennsylvania’s rules had to yield to a contrary federal policy, which said states must permit doctors to waive any such regulations if necessary. Cowen’s opinion decided the case based on Supreme Court precedents requiring court deference to reasonable federal agency interpretations. …

" ‘There is no basis for inferring from this case anything about how Alito would approach other cases involving abortion,’ Edward Whelan, president of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, wrote in a Web posting defending Alito’s vote.

"Conservatives make a similar point in discounting Alito’s vote to strike down the New Jersey ban on some late-term abortions in 2000." Source: Charles Lane, The Washington Post, 11/2/05, p. A6

"Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush’s Supreme Court nominee, wrote that ‘the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion’ in a 1985 document obtained by The Washington Times.

" ‘I personally believe very strongly’ in this legal position, Mr. Alito wrote on his application to become deputy assistant to Attorney General Edwin I. [sic] Meese III.

"The document, which is likely to inflame liberals who oppose Judge Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court, is among many that the White House will release today from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

"In direct, unambiguous language, the young career lawyer who served as assistant to Solicitor General Rex E. Lee, demonstrated his conservative bona fides as he sought to become a political appointee in the Reagan administration.

" ‘I am and always have been a conservative,’ he wrote in an attachment to the noncareer appointment form that he sent to the Presidential Personnel Office. ‘I am a lifelong registered Republican.’

"But his statements against abortion and affirmative action might cause him headaches from Democrats and liberals as he prepares for confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, scheduled for January.

" ‘It has been an honor and source of personal satisfaction for me to serve in the office of the Solicitor General during President Reagan’s administration and to help to advance legal positions in which I personally believe very strongly,’ he wrote.

" ‘I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.’ " Source: Bill Sammon, The Washington Times (www.washingtontimes.com), 11/14/05

"Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. sought to distance himself yesterday from staunchly conservative views he expressed 20 years ago, but some liberals and conservatives said they see the comments as the best indication yet of judicial philosophies he would bring to the bench. One liberal group said it will use the remarks in ads opposing Alito’s confirmation.

"In meetings with Democratic senators, Alito suggested that his comments in a 1985 job-application letter do not necessarily indicate how he might rule on sensitive cases. In successfully seeking a promotion in the Reagan administration’s Justice Department, Alito wrote that he was ‘particularly proud’ of contributing to cases arguing ‘that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.’ He added, ‘I personally believe very strongly’ in such positions.

"Senators who met privately with Alito yesterday said he played down the remarks’ significance. They said that he noted they are two decades old and that he stated a judge must rule according to the law, not personal sentiments.

" ‘He said, first of all, it was different then,’ Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) told reporters after meeting with Alito. ‘He said, "I was an advocate seeking a job, it was a political job, and that was 1985. I’m now a judge, I’ve been on the circuit court for 15 years, and it’s very different. I’m not an advocate, I don’t give heed to my personal views. What I do is interpret the law." ’ …"

"At least one prominent conservative who supports Alito agreed that he should not be allowed to distance himself from the 1985 remarks. ‘This idea that all the folks in the Reagan administration were all apparatchiks who didn’t believe what they were saying and writing is surreal,’ said Bruce Fein, who also was a Justice Department official during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. ‘In Alito’s memos, it’s clear that he wasn’t writing these things because he was forced to do so. He wrote them because he believed them.’ …

"In a 1985 memo to Attorney General Edwin I. [sic] Meese III, Alito also touted his membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a conservative group. It denounced admissions policies that increased the number of women and minorities on campus and reflected what the group called ‘the liberal-radical body of thought’ ruling the university." Source: Charles Babington and Dale Russakoff, The Washington Post, 11/16/05, p. A4

"Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. has signaled he would be highly reluctant to overturn long-standing precedents such as the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling, a move that has helped to silence some of his critics and may resolve a key problem early in the Senate confirmation process, several senators said yesterday.

"In private meetings with senators who support abortion rights, Alito has said the Supreme Court should be quite wary of reversing decisions that have been repeatedly upheld, according to the senators who said it was clear that the context was abortion.

" ‘He basically said … that Roe was precedent on which people – a lot of people – relied, and been precedent now for decades and therefore deserved great respect,’ Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) told reporters after meeting with Alito yesterday. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she had a similar conversation about an hour later with Alito, who has made clear that he personally opposes abortion.

" ‘I asked him whether it made a difference to him if he disagreed with the initial decision but it had been reaffirmed several times since then,’ Collins told reporters. ‘I was obviously referring to Roe in that question. He assured me that he has tremendous respect for precedent and that his approach is to not overturn cases due to a disagreement with how they were originally decided.’ " Source: Charles Babington and Michael Fletcher, The Washington Post, 11/9/05, pp. 1, A7

" ‘If he learned anything from me, he learned the value of stare decisis,’ said Judge Leonard I. Garth, a Nixon appointee on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3^rd Circuit for whom Alito, 55, served as a law clerk in 1976-77 – and later joined as a colleague on the court.

"But Garth added: ‘If what you’re thinking is "Would Sam overrule Roe?" – he would not. He might have restrictions and limitations, but it is a precedent he’d honor. As a previous mentor and as a present colleague, I don’t think he’ll overrule it.’ …"

"In reaffirming Roe in 1992 by a 5 to 4 vote, the Supreme Court relied heavily on stare decisis. The court said that even if the decision was not perfect in its original form, reversing its essential holding would be too disruptive to a society accustomed to thinking of abortion as a right.

"Nevertheless, the court has shown that stare decisis is not an inviolable command. The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision ordered school desegregation, striking down the ‘separate but equal’ rule the court had established in Plessy v. Ferguson 58 years earlier.

"And in 2003, the court struck down all state laws against private consensual sodomy, explicitly overruling its 1986 decision that said states could criminalize homosexual acts.

"Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) asked Alito about stare decisis during their informal meeting last week. Specter said that the nominee has told him he would evaluate precedent on a ‘sliding scale,’ giving the greatest weight to decisions that had been upheld by a large number of different justices appointed by different presidents. …

"Alito’s concept of a ‘sliding scale’ is interesting in light of abortion-rights history: In the Supreme Court’s 1992 decision upholding Roe, four of the five votes came from justices who were put on the court after Roe was initially decided."

"John Paul Stevens was appointed by President Gerald R. Ford. Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy were appointed by President Ronald Reagan. David H. Souter was appointed by President George H.W. Bush. The fifth vote came from Roe’s author, Harry A. Blackmun, appointed by President Richard M. Nixon. …

" ‘Based on my experience, he has an abiding respect for stare decisis, and frankly I’ve never seen anything that would give rise to a hint of disrespect for precedent,’ said Timothy K. Lewis, a Washington lawyer who served on the 3^rd Circuit from 1992 to 1999. ‘He is unequivocally not a judicial activist in any way, shape or form.’

" ‘Once he’s confirmed, is he going to go off on creative jaunts, or instead is he going to rely on prior Supreme Court precedent almost as much as he relied on it as a circuit judge?’ asked David Garrow, a Supreme Court historian at Cambridge University in Britain who has been studying Alito’s appeals court opinions. ‘The likely behavioral answer is that, having done things one way for 15 years with absolute consistency, he’ll continue to largely do things that way.’

"Jeffrey Wasserstein, a former Alito law clerk who said he voted for the Democratic presidential ticket in 2004, said: ‘He recognizes that precedent underlies our system and that it is necessary for settled expectations. I’d be personally surprised if he lightly overruled a precedent that has been on the books for 30 years.’ …

"Though Alito’s rulings on the 3^rd Circuit have generally reached conservative results, he has not publicly articulated an overarching critique of recent Supreme Court jurisprudence.

"This is in contrast not only to Scalia and Thomas, but also to other federal judges Bush might have chosen." Source: Charles Lane, The Washington Post, 11/6/05, p. A13

"Some antiabortion groups are starting to wonder whether Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. is as strong an ally of their cause as opponents have depicted him.

"Although he has been wholeheartedly embraced by most major conservative groups, those whose sole mission is to restrict and prohibit abortion have reservations about the latest Supreme Court nominee as they learn more about his record on the divisive issue."

" ‘I don’t know what his personal views are, but I know that he has ruled on pro-life cases four times and he has ruled against pro-life positions three times. And the fourth was a split decision,’ said Richard Collier, president of the Legal Center for the Defense of Life, based in Morristown, N.J.

" ‘If you look at the paper trial, it is all negative.’ Another group from New Jersey – Alito’s home state and the jurisdiction where many of his rulings as an appeals court judge have had a direct effect – is also concerned.

" ‘There’s a big question mark about what he would do’ on the Supreme Court, said Marie Tasy, executive director of New Jersey Right to Life. …

"A leading antiabortion group, the National Right to Life Committee, has not taken a formal position on Alito’s nomination, but the organization’s website suggests that the group considers his record on abortion to be mixed at best."

" ‘In examining his record, there are four principal abortion-related cases,’ the group’s website states. ‘Judge Alito voted in favor of the pro-life side once and against it three times.’

"Americans United for Life, a national organization of antiabortion attorneys, believes his record is ambiguous. …"

"Major social conservative groups such as the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America have endorsed Alito without reservation.

"But the chief counsel of Concerned Women for America, Jan M. LaRue, said the group considered more than just abortion in backing him, particularly Alito’s rulings in support of religious liberties. …"

" ‘I perceive excessive hiding behind abortion precedents, unlike his boldness in other areas,’ said Collier of the Legal Center for the Defense of Life.

" ‘He’s sort of perceived as a radical conservative. [If] that’s true, why isn’t that true in the abortion area?’ Collier said other federal judges had been less docile in applying precedents they disagreed with, making clear in their rulings their disagreement with higher courts even when applying their rulings.

" ‘I have never heard a peep of protest on precedents from Judge Alito,’ Collier said. ‘He has not advanced the ball intellectually on how to overturn Roe and Casey.’ " Source: Maura Reynolds, Los Angeles Times (latimes.com), 11/11/05

"Yet as more than a few abortion opponents have come to suspect, in the Oval Office the ‘culture of life’ is from time to time trumped by the culture of electability. With abortion rights safeguarded by Roe, and Roe, in turn, safeguarded by the court, a candidate’s public opposition to abortion is treated by much of the nation’s pro-choice majority as a more or less immaterial wish that’s unlikely to be fulfilled. For the millions of highly motivated pro-life voters, however, it’s much more: it’s a statement of solidarity and a solemn vow to advance their special cause.

"This lopsided investment in anti-abortion rhetoric has allowed Presidents Reagan, Bush and Bush to collect the votes of the anti-abortion faithful without paying much of a price among the electorate at large. But imagine what would happen if a Republican president actually honored the promise, explicit or implied, to engineer a court majority to overturn Roe. Republican opposition to abortion rights would no longer be theoretical. …

"But no group will have more cause for suspicion than the anti-abortion stalwarts who make up the backbone of the Republican Party. They’ve suffered multiple betrayals at the highest level. But they keep putting their faith in Republican presidents just the same. And like that most faith-based character of all, Charlie Brown, many of them still seem to believe that, one of these days, their friend in the White House, like a penitent Lucy, really will let them kick that political football named Roe." Source: Francis Wilkinson, The New York Times, 10/6/05, p. A35

"As a college senior at Princeton University, Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote a report that recommended the repeal of laws that made sex between gays a crime and urged new antidiscrimination laws for gays in the workplace. … His student report urged legal changes that were far ahead of their time."

" ‘The conference voted to recommend that the current sodomy law be changed,’ he wrote. ‘The conference believes that no private sexual act between consenting adults should be forbidden. Of course, acts of a coercive nature, acts involving minors and acts which offend public decency should still be banned. Discrimination against homosexuals in hiring should be forbidden. …"

"The report emerged from a class project in the fall of 1971 and was filed Jan. 4, 1972, the year Alito graduated from Princeton and enrolled in Yale Law School. The [Boston] Globe quoted a former classmate of Alito’s as saying that the future judge’s role in the report was largely advisory. …

"The recommendations by Alito’s group came long before the gay rights movement gained political power. They also were made when most states had sodomy laws that criminalized sex between gays.

"Until 1961, all states outlawed sex between gay adults. Many of those measures were repealed during the 1970s. However, when the Supreme Court took up a ‘right to privacy’ challenge to antisodomy laws in 1986, laws in 26 states set prison terms for adult homosexuals who were convicted of sodomy."

"In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Georgia’s antisodomy law that year and upheld the prosecution of a gay man. The Constitution does not include ‘a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy,’ the majority said in Bowers vs. Hardwick.

"Two years ago, however, the Supreme Court took up the issue again and overruled the Bowers decision. The 6-3 ruling in Lawrence vs. Texas struck down the last laws that criminalized sex between gay adults. Justice Anthony Kennedy said that gay and [lesbian] couples were ‘entitled to respect for their private lives,’ not prosecution by the government. …

"When Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. listed his four favorite Supreme Court justices for Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois on [November 2], the answer evoked that Sesame Street masterpiece, ‘One of These Things Is Not Like the Others.’

"Three of the names were no-brainers for a conservative advocate of judicial restraint like Judge Alito: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Justice Bryon R. White and Justice John M. Harlan. But Justice William J. Brennan?" Source: Todd Purdum, The New York Times, 11/3/03, p. A18

"Senators of both parties said [November 3] that Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush’s choice for the Supreme Court, had told them he believed the court might have gone too far in separating church and state.

"Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said that Thursday in a private meeting Judge Alito expressed empathy for ‘the impression that the court’s decisions were incoherent in this area of the law in a way that really gives the impression of hostility to religious speech and religious expression.’

"Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, said after his own meeting with the judge that he, too, was ‘very satisfied’ that Judge Alito had said he believed the court had erred by going too far in prohibiting government support for religion at the risk of hampering individual expression of religion.

" ‘He indicated that people have a right, a very distinct right, to express their religious views,’ Mr. Byrd said. … Many liberals and religious minorities view the court’s jurisprudence on separation of church and state over the last 50 years as a bedrock principle of American life. But anger over the court’s rulings against school prayer, government displays of the Ten Commandments and other public forms of religious expression also played a major role in the birth of a conservative Christian political movement." Source: David Kirkpatrick, The New York Times, 11/4/05, p. A22

"The Wall Street Journal, which says it stands for ‘free markets and free people,’ takes $5 million from the federally-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting to produce a weekly public-TV show called Journal Editorial Report. Still, it had the audacity to run a September 29 editorial denouncing former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay for not doing enough to cut back the size of the ‘federal Leviathan.’ The editorial griped about Republicans passing ‘a giant new Medicare entitlement,’ the prescription drug program. But there was no complaint about federal spending on public TV and radio. Isn’t that interesting?

"President Bush has announced his intention to nominate Julie Finley, a strong pro-abortion advocate, as U.S. Ambassador to The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

"The OSCE is engaged in setting standards in fields including human rights and humanitarian concerns as well as military security, and economic and environmental cooperation. In addition, the OSCE undertakes a variety of preventive diplomacy initiatives designed to prevent, manage and resolve conflicts within and among the participating states.

"Because of on-going attempts to promote taxpayer funding of abortion and the distribution of abortion causing drugs overseas, we are concerned that, given her history of support for liberal abortion policies, she will be able to promote her pro-abortion views through the OSCE.

"Julie Finley has served on the advisory board of the Republican Coalition for Choice, which works to remove the pro-life plank from the Republican National Platform. She is a founding member of The WISH List, a Political Action Committee that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for pro-abortion-choice Republican women candidates since its inception in 1992. She is a member of the Republican National Committee.

"Julie Finley is a major fundraiser for the Republican Party and has been recognized for her sizeable contributions with various appointments over the years. However, the position of Representative of the United States to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, with the rank of Ambassador, is the wrong message for the President to send, while talking at the same time about promoting a ‘culture of life’ in America." Source: Colleen Parro, Republican National Coalition For Life Fax Notes, 5/3/05

" ‘Both sides (in the abortion debate) are engaged in a phony war,’ says Marshall Wittman, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute…. The last thing this administration wants to see is Roe vs. Wade overturned. They know it would create a political firestorm’ for Republicans. …

"GOP gubernatorial candidates Bill Simon in California and Mitt Romney in Massachusetts have played down their past anti-abortion remarks. …

"To raise that point, of course, would help the scales fall from people’s eyes. It would help reveal that America’s courts, her Congress, and her president are morally complicit in the killing of children. That’s why the critics didn’t raise the issue. After all, America – the land of ‘choice’ – celebrates a woman’s ‘right’ to kill her children. Americans have the ‘freedom’ to kill their babies. And no one in the major media or among the cultural elite wants that ‘freedom’ to go away.

"The news of the crime made headlines worldwide. It also spurred pundits, reporters, ‘women’s’ activists, and countless other ‘elite’ analysts to comment on the killing. The message broadcast by commentators was, in general, that Yates was psychotic. Only a crazy mother would kill her own children, right? Here’s what some of the media said:

"Indeed. If Yates did not freely and willfully murder her children, she must have been crazy – right? Only psychos kill their own kids. ‘A mother killing her child is nature upended, a reversal of instinct, a violent challenge to the natural order of things,’ the media tell us. A sane person has free will. Sane people don’t murder their own children – unless, of course, they’re freely and willfully choosing to do evil. And that’s wrong. That is murder, by legal definition. That is ‘an act so heinous’ that it ‘defies comprehension,’ say the cultural elite.

"President Bush has named the executive vice-dean of the radiology department at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine to head the National Institutes of Health which funds more than 43,000 biomedical projects in the United States that employ more than 10,000 people. …

"President Bush also nominated Dr. Richard Carmona of Tucson, AZ to fill the position of U.S. Surgeon General. When asked if both nominees share Bush’s ethical opposition to human cloning and embryonic stem cell research, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters, ‘Suffice it to say that these are administration appointees. They serve the president; they serve his policies and I don’t think you would expect the president to appoint people who hold wildly different views than he does.’

"Now we have learned that the NIH has invited ‘applications for grants to develop, conduct, evaluate, and disseminate short-term courses on laboratory research techniques for human embryonic stem cell lines. The courses should include hands-on experience to improve the knowledge and skills of biomedical researchers to maintain, characterize, and utilize human embryonic stem cells in basic research studies and be made available to investigators in research areas of interest to all of the institutes and centers of the NIH.’

"WHY? Why is the Bush administration using our tax dollars to build a cadre of researchers who will become experts at human embryonic stem cell research and share their knowledge with their colleagues? This doesn’t look like a project that has an end in sight. This looks just like what we said it was when the President announced his support of ‘limited’ research on stem cell lines taken from tiny humans who had already been killed – a beginning – an opening of the door to a world we hoped we would never see.

"We invite you to take a look at the grant proposal yourself and see how the federal government is becoming complicit in developing ‘better methods’ of dissecting these tiny humans.

Previously, your editor has pointed out that President G.W.B.’s decision to restore the Reagan "Mexico City" policy, limiting the provision of your tax dollars flowing to overseas population control organizations was less significant than assumed by many well-intentioned pro-life leaders, in that, while the Bush policy does limit the direct use of U.S. subsidies to perform and promote abortion, nonetheless, the pro-abortion recipient organizations still get the money to which they are not Constitutionally or morally entitled, with these funds available to offset their other expenses, so long as the U.S. Treasury dollars are assigned to a separate bank account.

Now, in reviewing the policy as enunciated in the Federal Register (Vol. 66, No. 61, Thursday, March 29, 2001) Presidential Documents, "Memorandum of March 28, 2001: Restoration of the Mexico City Policy" over the signature of President Bush, it is clear that this is even less a pro-life victory than first believed.

"FAMILY PLANNING": YES, "ABORTION": NO --- WITH EXCEPTIONS

GWB: "The Mexico City Policy announced by President Reagan in 1984 required foreign nongovernmental organizations to agree as a condition of their receipt of Federal funds for family planning activities that such organizations would neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations….

"It is my conviction that taxpayer funds appropriated pursuant to the Foreign Assistance Act should not be given to foreign nongovernmental organizations that perform abortions or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations…except as otherwise provided below...."

ABORTION FUNDING OK IF NOT "A METHOD OF FAMILY PLANNING"

"The recipient agrees that it will not furnish assistance for family planning under this award to any foreign nongovernmental organization that performs or actively promotes abortion as a method of family planning in USAID-recipient countries or that provides financial support to any other foreign nongovernmental organization that conducts such activities. For purposes of this paragraph (e), a foreign nongovernmental organization is a nongovernmental organization that is not organized under the laws of any State of the United States, the District of Columbia or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. ..."

FUNDING OF "POST-ABORTION" CARE IS AUTHORIZED

"Abortion is a method of family planning when it is for the purpose of spacing births. This includes, but is not limited to, abortions performed for the physical or mental health of the mother, but does not include abortions performed if the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or abortions performed following rape or incest (since abortion under these circumstances is not a family planning act)."

FUNDING OF POST-ABORTION SERVICES PERMITTED

"To perform abortions means to operate a facility where abortions are performed as a method of family planning. Excluded from this definition are clinics or hospitals that do not include abortion in their family planning programs. Also excluded from this definition is the treatment of injuries or illnesses caused by legal or illegal abortions, for example, post-abortion care. ..."

GWB: "SAFE, LEGAL ABORTION" REFERRAL IS PERMITTED

"([P]assively responding to a question regarding where a safe, legal abortion may be obtained is not considered active promotion if the question is specifically asked by a woman who is already pregnant, the woman clearly states that she has already decided to have a legal abortion, and the family planning counselor reasonably believes that the ethics of the medical profession in the country requires a response regarding where it may be obtained safely).…"

GWB OK’S ABORTION ADVOCACY IF "FAMILY PLANNING" PERSONNEL DO IT ON THEIR LUNCH HOUR

"Action by an individual acting in the individual’s capacity shall not be attributed to an organization with which the individual is associated, provided that the organization neither endorses nor provides financial support for the action and takes reasonable steps to ensure that the individual does not improperly represent that the individual is acting on behalf of the organization. ..."

SEPARATE BANK ACCOUNTS FOR ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION

"The recipient may request USAID’s approval to treat as separate the family planning activities of two or more organizations, that would not be considered separate under the preceding sentence, if the recipient believes, and provides a written justification to USAID therefor, that the family planning activities of the organizations are sufficiently distinct so as to warrant not imputing the activity of one to the other."

ALL U.S. FUNDS MUST BE CLEANLY LAUNDERED

"Assistance for family planning may be furnished under this award by a recipient, subrecipient or sub-subrecipient to a foreign government even though the government includes abortion in its family planning program, provided that no assistance may be furnished in support of the abortion activity of the government and any funds transferred to the government shall be placed in a segregated account to ensure that such funds may not be used to support the abortion activity of the government."

DUBYA SAYS USAID SUBSIDIES WILL FUND CHILD-SPACING ABORTIONS

"Condoleeza Rice, Bush's much-expected pick as national security adviser, has described herself as ‘reluctantly pro-choice.’

" ‘What if I described myself as reluctantly pro-slavery?’ [Douglas] Scott [President of Life Decisions International] retorted. ‘I mean, we are all reluctant to make hard choices.’ ...

Cathy Young writes (Wall Street Journal, 1/25/01, p. A20) that "The argument that these [abortion] programs should continue to receive U.S. aid so long as they don’t use it directly for abortion-related services is a dodge. Money is fungible: If an organization runs Project A, which you find objectionable, and Project B, of which you approve, giving money to Project B will obviously help Project A by freeing up other parts of the organization’s budget."

FEMINISTS HAVE A TOUGHER STANDARD THAN DO PRO-LIFERS

Virginia Governor and new Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Gilmore discussed abortion with host Tim Russert on NBC’s Meet the Press (2/4/01):

TIM RUSSERT: "Let me show you the Republican Party platform on the very sensitive issue of abortion:

‘The unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.’ Harry Truman said a party’s platform is its contract with the people. Will the Republican Party – you now have the Senate, the House and the White House – work to enact a constitutional amendment to ban all abortion as promised in your platform?"

GOV. GILMORE: "I think the Republican Party is going to be able to find common ground on some of these areas – for example, the issues of partial-birth abortion, the issue of full information to a woman so that she has the best ability to make those kinds of decisions. And I think that we will find some common ground on that in the Republican Party, but the Republican Party’s a very diverse party. We have a lot of people in it with a lot of different points of view."

TIM RUSSERT: "But you won’t keep your word on your platform?"

GOV. GILMORE: "I’m not sure. It’s up to the Republican chairman of the Republican National Committee to either keep or not keep that kind of word. What I do believe is that...

TIM RUSSERT: "Well, should you keep your word on the platform?"

"HR-482 and S-251 were introduced, respectively, by Rep. David Vitter (R-LA) and Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-AR), who introduced the same bill in the Senate last year as a twin to a House measure filed by then-Rep. Tom Coburn (R-OK), the Congressional pro-life leader on RU-486. The family physician returned to his Oklahoma practice full-time in January to fulfill a term-limit pledge."

DRUG’S PURPOSE IS TO KILL

CNN's Bernard Shaw moderated the Thursday, October 5 vice-presidential debate in Danville, Kentucky between Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and former Defense Secretary Richard Cheney. Excerpts follow (nytimes.com, 10/6/00).

CHENEY SAYS GOVERNMENT EDUCATION IS THE SOLUTION, NOT THE PROBLEM

BERNARD SHAW: "You alluded to problems. There's no magic bullet, Secretary Cheney, in this question to you, no magic bullets to solve the problems of public education but what's the next best solution?"

RICHARD CHENEY: "Well, I think public education is the solution. ..."

CHENEY BACKS RU-486

BERNARD SHAW: "Mr. Secretary, this question is for you. Would you support the effort of House Republicans who want legislation to restrict distribution of the abortion drug RU486?"

RICHARD CHENEY: "Bernie, the abortion issue is a very tough one, without question, and a very important one. ... With respect to the question of RU486, we believe that of course that it's recently been approved by the F.D.A. That really was a question of whether or not it was safe to be used by women. They didn't address the, sort of the question of whether or not there should or should not be abortion in the society so much as evaluate that particular drug. ... With respect to the RU486 proposal, at this stage, I haven't looked in particular at that particular piece of legislation. Governor Bush made it clear the other night that he did not anticipate that he would be able to go in and direct the F.D.A. to reverse course on that particular issue, primarily because as I say the decision they made was on the efficacy of the drug, not the question of whether or not we supported abortion."

"'Maybe you've already gone back-to-school shopping with your kids. Well, Congress has taken one school supply off your list. It's called parental involvement. This time school clinics are giving it to students in caplet form. Known as the "morning-after" pill, it's a controversial drug that can be taken within 72 hours of sexual intercourse to either prevent or end a pregnancy. The bill would effectively take the "permission slip" out of your hands and give the pen to Congress. But although the Senate may sign the bill, parents, as taxpayers, are the ones signing the check. And like many other taxpayer decisions before, the check may as well be blank. Senator Helms said the government "[has] been given free reign to distribute to American school children whatever they so please."'"

PUBLIC EDUCATION THREATENS MODESTY, VIRTUE, CHASTITY, AND PARENTAL AUTHORITY

"'Most parents aren't aware that instead of sending their children to school, they're really sending them to a distribution center for free contraceptives. And now, thanks to this bill, they may not even be aware that their daughters are aborting a human life when they should be in geometry class. The pill, aside from destroying preborn children and encouraging promiscuity, is available without a parent's knowledge or consent! Americans need to "do their homework" before letting Congress and our schools do the parenting.'" Source: September 8, 2000 Radio Commentary of Freedom Research Council's Janet Parshall's Washington Watch.

Senator Jesse Helms has pointed out that "Planned Parenthood and its cronies have been given free reign to distribute to American schoolchildren whatever they so please -- to the point where schoolchildren are now being provided extremely controversial forms of contraception. And, in my judgment, this has gone on far too long."

Philip P. Pan reports from Shanghai (Washington Post, 10/12/00, p. 1) that "The Hua Lian Pharmaceutical factory emerges from fields of sorghum and green onions an hour's drive south of downtown Shanghai. At quitting time, workers board company buses that take them back to the city. Others leave on bicycles, pedaling toward nearby villages along narrow lanes dotted with oxen.

"Despite the tranquil appearance, the Hua Lian plant is a secret factory of sorts. Its name and location are shielded not by Chinese authorities, but by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which two weeks ago approved the sale of a product that workers here are preparing to churn out for the American market -- the abortion drug RU-486.

"Supporters of RU-486, which offers an alternative to surgical abortions, have for years sought a manufacturer to produce it for the U.S. market, ever since boycott threats by antiabortion activists led the drug's French developers to renounce U.S. production in 1992. For eight years, no pharmaceutical company would develop it for sale in the United States.

"So when the FDA announced it had approved the sale of RU-486, it took the unprecedented step of refusing to disclose the name or location of the manufacturer, citing concerns about employee safety and security. The drug's U.S. distributor, Danco Laboratories, also refused to identify the firm.

"But several Chinese officials and the head of a Bangkok-based foundation that has worked closely with the company confirmed today that Hua Lian Pharmaceutical Co. will produce the drug for the United States.

"An FDA official in Washington declined to comment, citing the agency's position that it would not disclose the location of the manufacturing site. Danco said in a statement from its New York offices that the site was inspected by the FDA to make sure it met the agency's requirements but that it could not identify the plant or comment on its location because of a confidentiality agreement.

"The fact that a state-owned company in China will be producing RU-486, or mifepristone, for U.S. consumers could become part of a debate over the drug in the United States. ..."

TESTED ON MILLIONS OF CHINESE CHILDREN

"RU-486 has been a key ingredient in China's population control strategy for years. Of the estimated 10 million abortions performed annually in China, about half are carried out with RU-486, said Gao Ersheng, director of the Shanghai Institute of Planned Parenthood Research. ..."

THE HIDDEN HOLOCAUST

"With the help of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bangkok-based Concept Foundation, the company has been working for three years to upgrade its equipment and retrain its staff to meet international standards in order to be permitted to export the drug."

"The Concept Foundation was established by the World Health Organization and World Bank in 1989 to assist factories in developing countries to make medical products at low cost for Third World health agencies. The Rockefeller Foundation gave $2 million to the group in 1997 to help Hua Lian and China's state family planning agency upgrade the factory.

"Joachim Oehler, who heads the Concept Foundation, said the goal was to enable Hua Lian to produce export-quality RU-486 to be used in China and elsewhere as an emergency contraceptive. He said the foundations knew that would also allow Hua Lian to export the drug to be used for inducing abortions, but that that was not their goal. ...

"China began experimenting with RU-486 as early as 1983, participating in clinical trials with the World Health Organization. In 1988, along with France, it became one of the first countries to approve the drug. By the mid-1990s, the drug had become popular for women seeking an alternative to surgical abortion."

The Republican National Coalition for Life's FaxNotes (9/22/00) reports that "Pro-life Republicans Help Defeat Helms Pro-life Amendment to China Trade Bill - From now on, Communist China's trading status will not be scrutinized by Congress on an annual basis. Instead, China has permanent trading status as well as U.S. approval for its petition to join the World Trade Organization. No longer will China's persistent human rights abuses and military expansion be a potential obstacle to our consideration of China as a trading partner. Money talks, in this case very loudly."

CONGRESS SUPPORTS SLAVE LABOR OVER FREE LABOR

"American businesses are making a fortune on the backs of Chinese laborers who manufacture thousands of products dirt cheap which are then imported by the U.S. to be sold at highly inflated prices to American consumers. It is truly becoming difficult to find a product that is not labeled 'Made in China.'

"Pressure for passage of the China trade bill has been so great that an amendment (4128) to HR-4444 expressing the sense of Congress that the President should urge Red China 'to cease its forced abortion and forced sterilization policies and practices' and 'to cease detention of those who resist abortion or sterilization,' offered by pro-life stalwart Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) was defeated 53-43."

29 "PRO-LIFE" REPUBLICAN SENATORS VOTE FOR ABORTION

"Republican Senators...who voted against the Helms amendment were:

The Associated Press reports (Washington Times, 9/15/00, p. A3) that "Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, has promised a vote within the month on legislation allowing funding for research on stem cells from discarded human embryos, said Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, chairman of the Appropriations Committee's health and human services panel.

"'I believe we have the votes,' said Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, who co-sponsored Mr. Specter's legislation. 'I hope we have the votes.'

"However, critics oppose the research, calling it illegal, immoral and unnecessary. ...

"Mr. Specter's legislation would let women agree to donate to federally funded researchers their embryos that were left over from in-vitro fertilization treatments."

Steven W. Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, points out (The Wanderer, 8/3/00, p. 6) that "Fully 94.8% of sexually active women in America are now either sterile or use some form of contraception -- yet the abortion rate has not changed significantly since 1975. ...

"Contraceptive use in developing countries has increased from about 8% of all couples in 1960 to about 60% of all couples in 1998. Yet the number of legal and illegal abortions worldwide continues to increase, reaching an estimated 55 million per year by the early 1990s according to the statistics provided by the International Planned Parenthood Federation. ... If contraceptives were truly the answer to reducing 'unwanted pregnancies,' we should have seen a drop or a leveling out in the number of abortions worldwide. Instead, the numbers continue to rise."

INTOLERANCE FOR THE PRO-FAMILY ETHIC

"The final reason that population control programs should be ended -- yesterday -- is straightforward: We as a people simply have no business telling families in the Third World how many children they should or should not have."

"Dead or Alive? Anesthesia Recommended for Organ Donors Thought to Be Dead. Some news that gives a shudder about organ donation has come from Britain. For a long time, anesthetists have debated whether people certified as 'brain dead' might experience pain during surgery to remove donated organs, done while their hearts are still beating."

"Now an editorial in Anaesthesia, the journal of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, has recommended that an anesthetic be routinely given during operations to remove a person's heart, lung, liver, and pancreas. Without sedation, such operations can bring troubling sights. Phillip Keep, a consultant anesthetist at the Norfolk and Norwich hospital says, 'Almost everyone will say they have felt uneasy about it.' 'Nurses get really, really upset. You stick the knife in and the pulse and blood pressure shoot up. If you don't give anything at all, the patient will start moving and wriggling around and it's impossible to do the operation.'"

PARTIAL DEATH ORGAN SNATCHING

"According to bioethics expert Gilbert Meilaender, cessation of heart and lung activity was the traditional criterion for determining when death occurs, but in 1968 a committee at Harvard recommended cessation of all brain activity as a criterion. The change allowed doctors to take organs from people whose heart and lungs were kept going mechanically, a process which protects the condition of the organs. However, a description like the one above stirs second thoughts about how best to treat 'patients.'" Family Research Council (Washington Update, 8/25/00)

TIM RUSSERT: "Who's going to win the Oscars?"

SEN. TRENT LOTT: "Well, I saw 'The Cider House Rules.' I enjoyed that tremendously."

TIM RUSSERT: "Best picture?"

SEN. TRENT LOTT: "It was great. Best movie."

(Transcript, Meet the Press, 3/26/00)

Ed Vitagliano, News Editor of the American Family Association's Journal (April, 2000) puts Hollywood's culture of promiscuity in perspective: "Based on the John Irving novel of the same name, The Cider House Rules....focuses on Dr. Wilbur Larch, who cares for the children, and Homer Wells, the young man he has raised to help him.

"At the orphanage, Larch often delivers babies who are then put into the care of the orphanage staff. The doctor also frequently performs abortions and dumps the dead babies into an outside incinerator."

JOHN IRVING HAD A MESSAGE TO DELIVER

"The movie presents a clear, one-sided argument in favor of abortion. This is no surprise, since Irving intended such a message for his book, and was pleased to see the same message faithfully replicated in the film. In the novel, Larch says that abortion is as much 'the Lord's work' as delivering babies."

HE HAD "USEFUL IDIOTS" LIKE TRENT LOTT IN HIS SIGHTS

"Enamored with the potential power of the movie to change people's minds to a pro-abortion position, Irving has gone so far as to suggest that the two groups of people that most need to see The Cider House Rules are pro-life politicians 'and 12-year-old girls.' ..."

EVIL IS DISGUISED AS COMPASSION ---

"[I]n The Cider House Rules, Larch demonstrates no regret for the abortions he performs, and, in fact, the doctor is an unabashed evangelist for his trade. ..."

--- IN A WORLD WITHOUT GOD

"[I]n this world, man needs not consult with God about how he should live -- presumably because God 'don't live here.' It is the occupants of the cider house -- the humans living on planet earth -- who have the right to decide which rules will be obeyed. Consequently, man will decide who lives and who dies. ..."

ABORTION IS SATAN'S SACRAMENT

"The truly wicked core of this film's message is that the butchery performed by the abortionist is an act of beneficence. Abortion becomes a noble endeavor. The wickedness of murder has been transformed into a sacred act, and the sacred act of defending the innocent becomes iniquity. In Larch's mind, it is much more of a sin not to kill the unwanted, unborn child, than to kill.

"Only a devil could conceive of an ethic which insists that society spare children misery by killing them. Such logic, of course, is happily dreamt of in the minds of those who wield the butcher's knife, rather than in the minds of those who find themselves under it. ... The final stop for the dismembered remains of unwanted babies, the incinerator stands outside the orphanage like a ghastly sentinel of the grave. ..."

HOLLYWOOD IS BLIND TO THIS HOLOCAUST

"Once the intrinsic, God-ordained value of innocent human life has been stripped away, man is free to begin the process of re-categorizing people into valuable and nonvaluable. Who will be tossed into the latter bin? It's been done before -- with Native Americans, slaves, and Jews -- and it is done now with unborn children."

Peter Kilborn reports (New York Times, 11/24/99, p. A16) that "The recipient of the largest amount of American birth control aid is Bangladesh.... Despite a decision by Congress last week to limit federal spending on groups that promote abortion rights abroad, the way the United States' contribution is spent in Bangladesh depends much more on local laws and practices than on anything done half a world away on Capitol Hill."

PLANNED PARENTHOOD "MENSTRUAL REGULATION" KILLS BABY HUMANS

"Officially, Bangladesh prohibits abortion except to save a mother's life. But the government of Bangladesh, an emphatic proponent of birth control, and the nongovernment Family Planning Association of Bangladesh, an affiliate of International Planned Parenthood Federation in London, do condone a practice that amounts to the same thing in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.

"In the procedure, which the government and the federation call 'menstrual regulation,' a woman who complains of having missed a period, rather than being given a pregnancy test, can be treated by a health care worker who suctions away the lining of the uterine wall, including any fertilized egg.

"The government defines this as 'an interim method of establishing nonpregnancy,' according to a study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a women's research organization in New York. It does not consider the procedure an abortion, because the woman does not take a pregnancy test and therefore is never officially deemed to be pregnant."

ONCE AGAIN, CONGRESSIONAL "PRO-LIFERS" ARE CONNED BY CLINTON

"In the legislation Congress passed to restore American financing of the United Nations, Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey, won inclusion of a clause restricting the United States Agency for International Development from using its money for family planning...to perform or promote abortions."

AMERICAN ABORTIONISTS ABROAD ARE STILL SUBSIDIZED

"Once it was negotiated with the White House, however, the provision left family planning groups with many ways around the restrictions. It prohibits agency financing for organizations that perform or promote abortions, whether with United States money or with their own. But it applies only to foreign, nongovernment organizations. Foreign governments and American organizations that operate abroad can still get the aid. ..."

U.S. AID AUTHORIZES EUPHEMISMS FOR ABORTION

"And the definition of terms is left to the Agency for International Development and the foreign governments. So what Bangladesh calls 'menstrual regulation' is not considered abortion under the law."

IT DEPENDS ON WHAT CLINTON'S DEFINITION OF "IS" IS

"Grover Joseph Rees, chief counsel of the House subcommittee that wrote the provision, said it also leaves the Clinton administration free to define abortion. The administration can decide whether it applies to aspiration, or suctioning of the uterine lining, for example, or heavy doses of mifepristone, the pill a woman takes to abort an embryo soon after she suspects she might have become pregnant.

"'If this is an abortion,' Mr. Rees said, 'some agency has to say it is an abortion.' In the case of vaginal aspiration or heavy doses of mifepristone, he said, 'A.I.D. ought to say it is. Smith would regard that as abortion.' If the agency agrees, the organization would have to stop the practice or lose its subsidy. Officials at the agency declined repeated requests for comment for this article."

U.N. SPENDS $2 BILLION ON POPULATION CONTROL

"The legislation also provides that if the president waives the provision, a penalty of $12.5 million will be deducted from the $385 million allotted to the agency for family planning....

"The United States remains the world's largest source of nearly $2 billion a year that the United Nations estimates that industrial countries spend to subsidize family planning in developing countries."

REPUBLICAN CONGRESS AGREES TO PAY PHONY DEBT TO U.N.
SUPPORTS ADDITIONAL CLINTON SUBSIDIES TO THE IMF ALONG WITH $385 MILLION FOR "POPULATION CONTROL"

As reported by Eric Planin and John F. Harris in The Washington Post (11/15/99, pp. 1, A8), "White House and GOP congressional negotiators last night ended their stalemate over the payment of nearly $1 billion in back dues to the United Nations...."

NO PRO-ABORTION LOBBYING UNLESS CLINTON ISSUES A WAIVER

"As part of the compromise, the White House would accept language written into the spending legislation that would formally bar those foreign groups from advocating liberalized abortion laws, according to sources familiar with the talks. ..."

ABORTIONISTS WOULD STILL GET $365 MILLION

"But in return for accepting the abortion language, Clinton would have the option of waiving the law if he saw fit. However, a waiver would automatically result in a 6 percent cut in the $385 million international family assistance funding, a $20 million penalty."

GOP AGREES TO SWEETEN IMF'S POT

"As part of the deal, the Republicans would also go along with the administration's proposal for expanding the International Monetary Fund's debt relief and forgiveness efforts through the sale of revaluing of some of the gold held by the multi-national lending institution. ..."

CLINTON'S FAMILY PLANNING "CONCESSIONS" EXPIRE IN 10 MONTHS

"[S]ources familiar with the White House's thinking note that the restrictions would not be permanent but would be written into a fiscal 2000 spending bill that will expire 10 months from now. And the sources said there can be little doubt that Clinton will use the waiver."

Toni Marshall reports (Washington Times, 11/25/99, p. A13) that "The Clinton administration said yesterday it would reject restrictions on abortion that were imposed by Congress last week in a bill to pay nearly $1 billion in back dues to the United Nations.

"The law prohibits U.S. funds from going to organizations that actively lobby foreign governments to legalize abortion.

"The law, however, came with a waiver, and Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright said yesterday that President Clinton would use it....

"The White House accepted language restricting abortions and Congress agreed to pay $926 million in back dues to the United Nations over the next three years.

"Mr. Clinton was given authority to waive the abortion restrictions with the relatively modest penalty of $12.5 million.

"As a result the United States will only be able to give $372.5 million to assist private family planning groups this year instead of the $385 million sought by the administration."

Juliet Eilperin reports in The Washington Post (10/21/99, p. A7) that "The House of Representatives, a bastion of anti-abortion sentiment since the Republican takeover in 1995, has quietly become more supportive of abortion rights this year, according to lawmakers and activists on both sides of the issue.

"The surprising shift results both from a modest increase in the number of lawmakers who favor abortion rights as well as a deliberate -- if little-publicized -- effort by GOP leaders to deemphasize the issue in the annual process of crafting spending bills."

REPUBLICAN LEADERS REJECT EVEN INCREMENTAL PRO-LIFE GAINS

"The House leadership has worked hard this fall to prevent conservatives from attaching abortion restrictions to appropriations bills, reversing its previous strategy of trying to strip abortion protections and family planning initiatives that Democrats had championed.

"This month, for instance, Republicans shepherded a foreign aid bill that provided $25 million in international family planning funds Congress had eliminated last year while resisting efforts to impose abortion-related restrictions on the money. ..."

SELLING OUT THE PRO-LIFE CAUSE IS HARD WORK, BUT SOMEBODY'S GOT TO DO IT

"Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) said congressional Republicans want 'to give the president as little reason to veto as necessary for reasons other than money.' Asking abortion opponents to withhold their amendments 'is a tough thing to do,' he said, because 'this is an issue of the heart.' ..."

RU-486 AND CONDOMS GIVEN A "FREE RIDE" BY CONGRESSIONAL MAJORITY

"While these limits remain in place, reproductive rights advocates have made inroads on other fronts this year. Beyond the effort to keep the foreign aid bill free of family planning restrictions, lawmakers also agreed for the second year in a row to provide contraception coverage for federal employees, as well as to drop language in the agriculture spending bill prohibiting the Food and Drug Administration from considering whether to approve the use of the abortion pill commonly known as RU-486.

"Conservatives on the Appropriations Committee also agreed with the leadership to resist offering abortion-related amendments to the bill funding the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education departments."

PRO-LIFERS DENIED A VOTE

"One measure would have required parental notice for contraception offered to minors by federally funded clinics, another would have prohibited those facilities from housing an abortion clinic in the same building and a third would have banned the use of embryos in federal stem-cell research."

TIAHRT EXPRESSES DISAPPOINTMENT WITH HIS OWN SUBMISSION TO PRAGMATISM

Tom Carter reports (Washington Times, 7/21/99, p. A13) that the GOP House voted "to resume funding of U.N. family planning programs after a one-year hiatus....An amendment to authorize $25 million for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) was approved on a 221-198 [Roll Call no. 312, 7/20/99] vote. ...

"In effect, the United States will give UNFPA about $20 million next year. Last year, Congress refused to approve any money for the agency.

"Approval of the amendment was a setback for anti-abortion Rep. Christopher H. Smith, New Jersey Republican, who has consistently linked foreign affairs funding with anti-abortion legislation. ...Mr. Smith said UNFPA did not deserve U.S. support because it was 'complicit' in China's 'crimes.'

"That view was challenged by Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman, New York Republican and chairman of the International Relations Committee, who co-sponsored the amendment that passed."

Fortunately, an amendment by Connecticut Democrat Congressman Rosa DeLauro to H.R. 2490, Treasury-Postal Appropriations, was defeated 230 to 188 (Roll Call no. 301, 7/15/99). If it had succeeded, American taxpayers would have been required to indirectly pay for the cost of abortions performed on Federal employees, via their government-subsidized health insurance.

The bad news is that 28 House Republicans supported DeLauro in seeking to require you to underwrite the slaughter of unborn children.

An amendment introduced by Senator Bob Smith (R-N.H.) to uphold current law and prevent taxpayer-funded abortions at military hospitals passed the Senate on May 26, 1999, by a vote of 51-49 (Roll Call no. 148).

Democrats who joined Smith in opposing abortions at military hospitals were John Breaux (La.) and Harry Reid (Nev.).

Warren Rudman, in his book, Combat: Twelve Years in the U.S. Senate, acknowledges what no other member of his party in the U.S. Senate has been willing to publicly admit: that David Souter, Rudman's and, subsequently, Bush's candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court, was pro-abortion from start to finish.

TCC RESEARCHED THE FACTS AND DELIVERED TO GOP SENATORS INCONTROVERTIBLE EVIDENCE OF SOUTER'S SUPPORT FOR ABORTION

Here is what Rudman had to say: "Howard Phillips, chairman of the Conservative Caucus, opposed the nomination, citing the fact that David, as a board member of the Concord Hospital, had participated in unanimous decisions to permit abortions there. ..."

GOP SUPREME COURT JUSTICES KENNEDY, O'CONNOR, AND SOUTER SAVED ROE V. WADE

"But perhaps the best ending to this story is a scene in a railroad station in Wilmington, Delaware, on Monday, June 29, 1992.

"That was the day the Supreme Court announced its long-awaited decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the case in which the pro-life forces had hoped to muster five votes to overturn Roe v. Wade. Four votes were there, those of Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices White, Scalia and the most recent addition to the court, Clarence Thomas. To form a majority, they needed only one vote from the centrist trio of Kennedy, O'Connor and Souter, and past votes by Kennedy and O'Connor had suggested that either might help overturn Roe."

SOUTER BECAME THE PRO-ABORTION LEADER

"Instead, Kennedy, O'Connor and Souter signed an unprecedented three-person opinion, joined by Justices Blackmun and Stevens, that dramatically reaffirmed Roe. In court that morning, each of the three read aloud a segment of the joint opinion.

"There was little doubt that David had been the catalyst who had drawn O'Connor and Kennedy to the defense of Roe, or that he was the principal author of the eloquent statement on stare decisis that was the heart of the opinion."

GOP PRESIDENTS NAMED PRO-ROE MAJORITY

Justice Blackmun was appointed by President Nixon, Justice Stevens by President Ford, Justices O'Connor and Kennedy by Ronald Reagan, and David Souter by George Bush -- five pro-Roe Republican appointees whose selections betrayed the GOP's pro-life supporters. In baseball, after three strikes, you're called out. When you strike out five times, it's time to surrender your place to others -- who will deliver.

Life Advocacy Briefing #6-19 for May 17 reports that "An astonishing call was issued last week by Werner Fornos, notorious president of the pro-abortion Population Institute, during a preparatory conference for the UN's review of the Cairo action plan on population and development.

"'Complain[ing] that the Cairo+5 debate has not centered more on finding cheap ways to sterilize women in the developing world,= reports Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute director Austin Ruse in CAFHRI's Friday Fax, '...[Mr.] Fornos called for the use of the controversial drug Quinacrine.'"

WILL ACID BE USED TO DESTROY THE WOMB?

"The vaginally inserted pellet, which acts, notes Mr. Ruse, 'by burning [a woman's] fallopian tubes and upper uterus with acid,' is such an offensive product that it has been banned in the US and was declared unsafe by the World Health Organization in 1993.

"Overseas peddling of the poison by two North Carolina men was the subject of an extensive Wall Street Journal expose last year, leading to a supposed crackdown on its manufacture."

QUINACRINE IS DEADLY MEDICINE

"'The spread of Quinacrine internationally has come mainly from two US researchers who are funded by American anti-immigration and population control groups,' reports Mr. Ruse. 'Stephen Mumford and Elton Kessel, each long ago fired from the contraceptive research group Family Health International, are said literally to carry briefcases full of the pellets to small villages in poor countries all over the world. ... The attraction of [using Quinacrine] is that it can be performed without advanced training and the pellets cost only a penny apiece.

"'Short term medical consequences,' says Mr. Ruse, 'include abnormal bleeding, backaches, fever, lower abdominal pain and headaches. Independent laboratory studies,' warns Mr. Ruse, 'show long-term side effects could include cancer.' Friday Fax quotes Dr. Mohan Rao, 'chairman of the Center of Social Medicine and Community Health in India, [who] says the method "has a barbaric history going back to the Nazi concentration camps."'

"Yet Mr. Fornos insists on Quinacrine as '"a medical priority,"' reports Mr. Ruse, and insists, says Friday Fax: '"Quinacrine has already been proven a safe drug, one used by soldiers in World War II. ..."'

"Lest anyone think Mr. Fornos will be dismissed for his quackery, Mr. Ruse notes 'that the chairman of the Cairo+5 process, Amb. Anwarul Chowhury of Bangladesh, serves on [Mr.] Fornos's board of directors.'"

Rick Weiss reports (Washington Post, 5/23/99, p. A1) that a "presidentially appointed ethics panel has decided to recommend that the federal government begin funding some research on human embryos, saying the moral cost of destroying embryos in research is outweighed by the social good that could come from the work."

SLICING AND DICING FLESH AND BLOOD HUMAN SOULS

"Citing recent evidence that some human embryo cells have the potential to grow into replacement tissues to treat a wide variety of chronic diseases, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission has concluded that it is essentially unfair to millions of patients for Congress to continue its broad, four-year-old funding ban on human embryo research. ..."

MR. SHAPIRO IS WRONG -- THE OBLIGATION IS NOT SO MUCH "TO THE EMBRYO" AS IT IS TO GOD ALMIGHTY

"'These are very difficult judgements to make, but it's a balancing act,' said Harold T. Shapiro, chairman of the bioethics commission and president of Princeton University. 'We have moral obligations to the future health and welfare of people, and we need to balance these with, at the very least, the symbolic moral obligation we have to the embryo.'

"The recommendations go further than those recently proposed by the National Institutes of Health. Those call for federally funded research on laboratory-grown human embryo cells, but not on human embryos themselves. ..."

SUPERMAN LEARNED THE WRONG LESSONS FROM HIS RIDING ACCIDENT

"'Patients and their families faced with life-threatening and chronically disabling diseases want science to move as quickly as possible,' said Daniel Perry, executive director of the Alliance for Aging Research and chief of a new coalition of patient groups advocating research on human embryonic stem cells, the embryo-derived cells that have generated so much recent excitement.

"The new group, Patients' Coalition for Urgent Research, or CURe, includes more than two dozen national organizations, such as the American Cancer Society and the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation. At an inaugural event last week, the group released poll results indicating that 74 percent of Americans support human embryonic stem-cell research. ..."

IF "HARD CASE" ABORTIONS ARE OK, WHY NOT CHOP UP THE EMBRYOS?

"The commission notes, for example, that even many conservatives support abortion under certain circumstances. 'Conservatives who accept that killing a fetus is permissible where it is necessary to save the life of the mother should agree with liberals that it is also permissible to destroy embryos where it is necessary to save people.' ..."

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE

"The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the professional organization that oversees fertility clinics, where most of the nation's uncounted thousands of spare embryos are stored in freezers, expressed support for the commission's conclusions.

"'We would certainly welcome federal funding and oversight for research involving human embryos and human embryonic stem cells, and we would hope that Congress would act on the commission's recommendation,' said Sean Tipton, a spokesman for the organization in Washington."

Isn't it time to stop the "ethnic cleansing" of millions of unborn children in China, or indeed, for that matter, the United States?

When it comes to Serbia's oppression of Kosovo, the number of souls involved is fewer than 3 million, but scores of millions of souls in America and other NATO countries have not only been victimized in the wombs of their mothers, they have had their very lives taken from them. And if enormity of evil counts for anything, isn't Beijing a more appropriate target than Belgrade?