Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Set to Advance, Media Errors Continue

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Members appointed to a conference committee to complete work on the partial-birth abortion ban are wasting no time in getting started. They are expected to meet Tuesday, where they will remove an amendment to the bill added in the Senate that endorses the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

Once they finish, all that remains is for each chamber to approve the committee's report and then the bill goes to President Bush for his signature.

At least one house is expect to take up the conference committee's report this week. Both chambers approved the pro-life bill earlier this year by about a 2-1 margin, and are expected to support the conference committee report, though a last-minute filibuster in the Senate could materialize.

National Right to Life legislative director Douglas Johnson said the American public overwhelmingly supports a ban, but the question remains as to whether the Supreme Court will overturn this version of it as they did in 2000 with a Nebraska version containing slightly different language.

"President Bush, 70 percent of the public, and four Supreme Court justices say there is no constitutional right to deliver most of a living baby and then puncture her head with a scissors," Johnson explains.

"But in the Stenberg v. Carhart ruling in 2000, five Supreme Court justices said that Roe v. Wade guarantees an abortionist's right to perform a partial-birth abortion whenever he chooses. We hope that by the time this ban reaches the Supreme Court, at least five justices will be willing to reject such extremism in defense of abortion," Johnson said.

The bill represents the first direct national restriction on any method of abortion since the Supreme Court legalized abortion on demand in 1973.

Meanwhile, Johnson criticized the media on Monday for resurrecting errors about partial-birth abortion that have long been refuted.

Johnson singled out Gannett News Service reporter Pamela Brogan in particular for criticism -- and it's not the first time.

Brogan recently wrote a news story about the latest actions in the effort to move the ban forward. Her story appeared in the September 28 issues of the Detroit News.

That story presents two claims about Roe v. Wade that are demonstrably erroneous.

Brogan's article said: "The [Roe v. Wade] decision . . . said abortion decisions in the first trimester must be left to physicians. The court further said states could regulate or restrict abortion in later stages of pregnancy but must provide an exception for the health of the mother."

"The notion that the 'right to abortion' being enforced under Roe v. Wade is limited in some special way to 'the first trimester' is a gross misconception, which has been repeatedly refuted by the Supreme Court itself," Johnson explained.

Actually, Roe said that abortion had to be allowed for any reason until "viability," a stage when the baby can survive independently from the mother. That point is generally considered to be around 23 weeks, or the second trimester of pregnancy.

Most media outlets, including the New York Times and Associated Press, abandoned referring to Roe in terms similar to Brogan's long ago.

In addition, in the 1992 Casey v. Planned Parenthood decision, the court said abortion should be legal throughout the first two trimesters and wrote, "We reject the trimester framework, which we do not consider to be part of the essential holding of Roe."

In the Gannett article, Brogan also wrote that "a Bush appointment to the Supreme Court could provide a majority that would vote to overturn the court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion."

While pro-life groups would be delighted to see Roe hanging by a thin one-vote margin, only three current justices favor overturning the landmark abortion decision: Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas.

Pro-abortion groups have also made the claim in an attempt to boost fundraising efforts by scaring donors.

The claim that the current Supreme Court has a 5-4 majority in favor of Roe assumes that Justice Kennedy favors overturning Roe. While he voted to uphold the ban on partial-birth abortions, Kennedy also voted to uphold Roe in the Casey decision and said nothing in his opinion in the Nebraska case to suggest he had changed his mind.

"The Gannett story appears to be another illustration of how, in the hands of some journalists, 'Roe v. Wade' is a very elastic concept that can easily be expanded or contracted depending on which version serves a particular story line -- and even used in clearly inconsistent ways within the very same story," Johnson concluded.

Related web sites: National Right to Life on media bias and partial-birth abortion

“America Will Not Reject Abortion Until America Sees Abortion” Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life.

I firmly believe that Fr. Frank is correct.

Please watch the video available on-line called Hard Truth at Abortion Videos . It is perhaps the most powerful film ever produced on abortion. Actual footage of living, in-utero children and their aborted peers tell the hard truth about abortion in ways "just words" never will. Hard Truth packs such unprecedented power that viewers can scarcely watch without being profoundly affected. In total, the film is only nine minutes long, and except for the introduction, there is no narration.

Then go to http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/abortionimages/index.htm , and see the horrible reality of abortion via color photographs.

I also highly recommend reading Abortion: the Silent Holocaust. It was written by Fr. John Powell, S.J. (Click on “abortion: books” then scroll.) I believe it is one of the most important books on the subject ever written. This book has overwhelming importance for readers from high-school age onward, as well as adult study. The author speaks directly to the reader as few writers can. He takes you along his personal journeys from his studies in Germany and tour of the death camp in Dachau, through his work in the pro-life movement.

Comprehensive education of adults, and more importantly school students, is
THE MISSING KEY OF THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT

Ignorance is the greatest weapon of the pro-abortion side.

"The pro-abortionists have a death grip on the light switch... How can truth ever penetrate the intentional blackout by the media?"

I am glad you asked. There are of course more ways for people to learn about this than from Dan Blather.

Their are tens of millions of people who call themselves Christian, go to church and send their kids to Christian school and/or Bible/Relegion study.

Now HOW have so many of these people, over the 30 years since Roe v Wade remained so ignorant?

It is in no real way the media's fault. It is how these people have been educated--or not educated.

If you are still with me on this, below is something I wrote related to this very topic:

Even Patricia Ireland Used to be Pro-Life
And why so many Christians vote pro-abortion

May 10, 2003

By Kevin M. Jeanfreau, Founder
Christian Patriots For Life
http://www.CpForLife.org

Patricia Ireland and her entire side used to be pro-life. Each and every one of them was—when they were young. If you had asked little Miss. Ireland while in the first grade what is inside a pregnant woman’s “tummy,” she would have said a baby. If you had asked if it would be O.K. to hurt that baby in any way, she would have said no. Try it with a thousand first graders; their answers will all be basically the same. The fact is, we are all naturally pro-life.

Throughout these last three decades while children have been growing up, they are fed a prodigious diet of anti life, anti family rhetoric, seasoned with subtle “choice” sentiment. Over time, this propaganda slowly becomes “palatable”. Roughly 50+ % of them (us) change from their natural pro-life selves into pro-abortion adults. Sadly, during these same decades, children who have gone through Christian education from kindergarten through 12th grade have not been taught the truth about the sanctity of life, and so statistically are almost as likely to become pro-abortion as those who receive government education. Voting records of Christians show that our Christian schools have not taught the truth about the unborn in any meaningful way as an option to the lies we all have been exposed to. When our shepherds express their “sadness and frustration” over their flocks repeated votes for pro-abortion politicians, it must be respectfully pointed out to these shepherds that they never had these former students of their Christian schools educated on WHY they are supposed to vote pro-life. THEY WERE NEVER TAUGHT THE TRUTH, and so they swallowed the lies. Quite frankly we should not expect these ex-pro-life people to make voting pro-life a priority—we let them down.

With comprehensive Pro-Life education in Christian schools, from K-12 (and beyond), we can greatly reduce that 50 percent of the “Patricia Ireland's” who become pro-abortion. One document that offered so much opportunity, and still is truly authoritative on this subject is entitled Respect Life Curriculum Guidelines. It was published in 1977 by the Department of Education, United States Catholic Conference. Here are some brief quotes:

"The pastoral plan for pro-life activities, issued by the U.S. bishops in November, 1975, urged the development of educational tools to bring the Church’s teaching of the value of life and on the life-centered issues in an effective way, through our educational apostolate, to the whole Church." (Page one)

"These Guidelines...are a response to the challenges and crisis of our time. The education envisioned by these guidelines seeks long-term improvements. The assumption here is (1) that positive respect life attitudes can be inculcated through educational processes, and (2) that these attitudes and values, reflected in the many issues of daily life, will have practical impact on people's lives and environment." (Page four)

This 109 page book has guidelines for "Pre-school through High School" It went further still into curriculum guidelines for "Adult Learners, Parents and Families, Adults in Leadership Positions in the Church ...and Community." (Page three) It is my opinion that this book never received anything near the attention required to achieve its intended purpose. It is available on-line at: http://www.nccbuscc.org/prolife/publicat/respectl.htm (scroll to the very bottom, Item #7715).

It is reasonable to expect that if Christian school students were to receive thorough and proper sanctity of life education from K-12 (with testing); we could reduce that number mentioned above from 50% to perhaps 25 percent. If we could have kept half of the millions who vote for pro-abortion candidates, it is quite likely that by now the numbers of politicians required to pass a human life amendment would have already been elected. Exactly one-half of voters in the 2000 presidential election were age 18-44. This entire group was in school after Roe v. Wade, and those who received Christian education could also have received a pro-life education. In this regard, our pro-life movement has in effect put the cart in front of the horse. The laws won't change until years after the culture does—and to a significant majority.

This is something that should have started long ago. Moreover, no organization would have any power to stop it (except for pro-aborts from within). The same is true today. Protestant and Catholic leaders who control schools, Bible study, CCD etc. need only the will to make this happen. Each day it doesn't happen is another day of victory for the pro-abortion forces, because ignorance of the masses is the only sure hope they have for survival.

One should also consider that regardless of what the law says about abortion, education would greatly reduce the number of abortions, because women who go through Christian education have a significant percentage of abortions. The industry of death would diminish in power if the demand for abortion were cut significantly.

The solution to ending the culture of death does not realistically lie with changing or “reversing” the minds of pro-abortion adults; it lies with preserving the 99+ % of children that are already pro-life on their first day of school. We examine this simple reality in The Missing Key of The Pro-Life Movement, available at http://www.CpForLife.org.

To the leaders of the pro-life movement and more directly, to those in charge of Christian education systems: With regard to comprehensive pro-life education for your students, I implore you to start today, because there are millions of “Patricia Ireland’s” in your schools—right now.

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