From Mike McMonagle, President
1. The Pa. Pro-Life Movement's Relationship with Gov. Corbett's Administration
2. A Proposal to Lower our State's Late-Term Abortion Limit from 24 to 18 Weeks
3. Obamacare Abortion Opt-Out Legislation Advances
4. Report on the Struggle to Keep Abortion Out of Ireland
The following is a discussion of these items.
1. The Pa. Pro-Life Movement's Relationship with Gov. Corbett's Administration
I
have previously expressed concerns and disappointments with the policies
of Gov. Corbett's Administration in some recent e-mails. On
April 29, 2013,during a press conference in Philadelphia at the start
of closing arguments in the abortionist Kermit Gosnell trial, I began to
mildly, yet publicly, speak to these concerns and disappointments. These concerns and disappointments include the following:
A. Despite
his pledge as a candidate in 2008 and 2010, and that of his Deputy
Policy Director in April 2011, Gov. Corbett continues to provide the same
amount of state funds (a total of approximately $8.5 million) to
abortion-committing organizations as did Gov. Rendell. Gov.
Corbett continues to decline to place language in his budget that would
effectively eliminate such organizations from receiving state funds.
B. Gov. Corbett's DOH continues to allow abortion facilities to cover-up sexual assaults on girls as young as 12. As
Pa. Attorney General, Tom Corbett stated that abortion facilities
committed a crime if they failed to report pregnancies on a girl 12 or
younger. Now, Gov.Corbett's DOH refuses to investigate whether these reports are being filed. His DOH now has the authority to withdraw the license from any abortion facility that fails to make these reports.
C. Gov.
Corbett's DOH continues to allow abortion facilities to violate the
informed consent laws by performing the required counseling in groups, by
video and/or over the phone and/or by non-physicians. The websites and Yellow Pages ads of our state's abortion facilities contain the evidence of these violations.
D. Gov.
Corbett's DOH has out-sourced the accreditation of abortion facilities
in Pa. to an organization in Illinois entitled the American Association
for Accreditation of Ambulatory Surgery Facilities (AAAASF). Act 122, which took effect in June 2012, requires such accreditation by AAAASF to be a necessary condition. However, Gov. Corbett's DOH has interpreted this law to make such accreditation a sufficient condition. Therefore, DOH has been accrediting abortion facilities in Pa. without ever inspecting them.
I plan to continue some private entreaties with Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley to change these bad policies.
2. A Proposal to Lower our State's Late-Term Abortion Limit from 24 to 18 Weeks
According
to the 2011 Pa. Abortion Statistics, approximately 1,000 children were
killed before birth by abortion in Pa. between 18-24 weeks. Therefore, such a policy change would save lives.
Such a proposal also places the pro-life movement in the offensive and requires the other side to defend late-term abortions. Such a proposal is another logical application of lessons learned from the abortionist Gosnell scandal.
In
his 2007 opinion upholding Nebraska's ban on partial-birth abortion,
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who provided the fifth vote in this case,
invited further such challenges to Roe, based on stopping fetal pain. Other states have lowered their abortion limit and I propose that we also do so in Pa.
3. Obamacare Abortion Opt-Out Legislation Advances
On May 7, 2013, the Pa. Senate Banking and Insurance Committee passed H.B. 818 by a 9 to 5 vote. A vote by the full Senate on this legislation is likely to occur in the near future.
Please
contact your State Senator as soon as possible and urge him or her to
vote for H.B. 818 and against all weakening amendments.
4. Report on the Struggle to Keep Abortion Out of Ireland
From May 9-19, 2013,
I will be unavailable because I will be joining an international team of
pro-life activists for a "Walk for Life and Justice" from Belfast to
Dublin. Many of us on this walk participated in the
human rights protest in Tiananmen Square in Beijing just before the start
of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Unlike our experience in China, we do not expect to be deported from Ireland.
In June 2013, the Irish Parliament has scheduled a vote on legislation to legalize abortion for the "suicide exception." The history of the exception (e.g., in California and Pennsylvania before Roe) is that thousands of "legal abortions" will result.
In
2011, in the wake of Ireland's economic downturn, their equivalent of
the Democrats in the U.S. [Fine Gael (FG)] won a majority in the Irish
Parliament (called the Dáil Éireann). FG won on a promise not to legalize abortion in Ireland. But,
the current Irish Prime Minster (called the Taoiseach), Enda Kenny, has
broken that promise and is leading an effort to legalize abortion in
Ireland. A brazen and massive lie by news media outlets
about the death of a pregnant woman from India at a hospital in
Ireland in December 2012, is aiding this effort.
The vote will be close. Already at least 30 FG members have agreed to vote against Kenny's proposal. However, similar
to the U.S., some members of Fianna Fáil, the equivalent of
the Republicans in the U.S. and allegedly "pro-life," might vote
with Kenny. In addition, the members of the Dáil from the
Sinn Féin and the Labour Parties have committed to vote for
legalized abortion in Ireland. The website www.lifeinstitute.net provides a detailed explanation of this situation in Ireland.
