By Ernest Ohlhoff, Outreach Director
Events in 2012 may well determine the future of the pro-life movement for decades to come. If that sounds extreme, please read on.
During the past thirty-four years I have been part of or have witnessed much of the pro-life movement’s history. While we have not reached our ultimate goal of returning legal protection to unborn children, the Movement has made steady progress in placing limits on abortion and in educating the public to the undeniable humanity of the unborn.
However, during the past three years, the Obama Administration has worked to undermine and actually in some cases reverse pro-life initiatives that went back as far as the administration of President Ronald Reagan, or even earlier. Were President Obama to have three more years, he no doubt would work doubly hard to roll back pro-life gains and strengthen pro-abortion forces.
His commitment to abortion on demand has never been in question. For example, on January 21, 2011, the day before the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Obama reaffirmed his support for legalized abortion on demand. He pledged, “I am committed to protecting this constitutional right.”
During his three plus years in office, Obama has blocked attempts to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood, orchestrated removal of a ban on government-funded abortions in the District of Columbia (later restored by Congress), restored funding for private organizations that perform and promote abortions overseas, and rescinded a regulation that would have protected health-care providers who refused to participate in providing abortions. (For more, see the statement by NRLC President Carol Tobias.)
The Obama Administration’s most damaging action to date, however, is the hydra-headed monster commonly known as ObamaCare. It contains a myriad of anti-life provisions and mandate powers through which the Administration can promote abortion, eliminate conscience clause protections, and establish mechanisms of government-dictated health care rationing.
Using the mandate powers in ObamaCare, President Obama is trying to force religious institutions and individuals of conscience to pay for health insurance plans that cover medical procedures and drugs contrary to their religious beliefs and consciences. By simple extension of these existing mandate powers, the Department of Health and Human Services could easily include abortion in a list of federally mandated “preventive services” to be covered by most health care plans.
President Obama has tried to claim that the current objections to ObamaCare come only from those who are opposed to contraception. Yet, as the Catholic bishops have repeatedly pointed out, the current debate is not about contraception or any other specific teaching of any religion. It is about the government trying to control how churches and religious believers live out their faith.
What Mr. Obama appears incapable of understanding is how deeply committed Americans are to the principles of religious freedom on which the United States was founded. Whether people identify themselves as Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Evangelical, Mormon, or Jewish, they understand that the government does not have the right to force religious individuals, organizations, or churches to violate their consciences or act in a manner contrary to the teachings of their faiths.
For those new to the Movement, it is important to know that attacks on religious institutions by abortion activists are not new. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dr. Bernard Nathanson and Lawrence Lader, who were founding members of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), cynically targeted the Catholic bishops as a way to tear down protective abortion statutes.
As he began his conversion to a full pro-life position, Dr. Bernard Nathanson revealed in his book, Aborting America a key strategy used by NARAL. Lader’s strategy for breaking down opposition to the legalization of abortion centered on demonizing the Catholic bishops. In the book, we read that Lader said
“Historically…every revolution has a villain…
“Not just all Catholics…that’s too large a group…we have to convince liberal Catholics to join us, a popular front as it were…[the villains have] got to be the Catholic hierarchy. That’s a small enough group to come down on, and anonymous enough so that no names ever have to mentioned but everybody will have a fairly good idea whom we are talking about.”
There is no accurate way to evaluate the impact of NARAL’s anti-Catholic strategy put into play more than four decades ago. What we can say is that the statements of the current Obama Administration officials seem to be taken chapter and verse from the early NARAL playbooks. The attacks today on religious liberty bear strong similarities in their reliance on casting Catholic principles as examples of anti-woman, anti-progressive religious oppression.
By drawing a line in the sand-demanding that religious institutions violate their beliefs-he has created a chasm too wide to bridge.
Many legal analysts have also pointed out that the current mandates are only the first step. ObamaCare is riddled with provisions that will allow the administration to require funding of abortion via insurance coverage, as well as promoting euthanasia through health care rationing. Repealing ObamaCare may be the last hope for several decades to prevent our nation from sliding down a slippery slope into government- sponsored abortion and massive health care rationing.
Although the major media outlets and culture of death forces are trying to keep the public’s focus on the red herring issue of contraception, many pro-life organizations and other groups of concerned citizens have recognized the threat and are coalescing in their opposition to these attacks on religious freedom. Americans have recognized that an attack on the conscience rights of anyone is an attack on all.
If the Obama administration is allowed to continue its relentless anti-life campaign, human rights and freedoms in this country may be compromised for decades to come. It is time for people of faith to fish or cut bait—to act or be acted upon.
See also, “U.S. Bishops Issue Call to Action to Defend Religious Liberty”
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