By Dave Andrusko
NRLC President Carol Tobias
Hopefully you’ve had a chance to hear the first three parts of the series, “Abortion in America” at www.prolifeperspective.com. On Monday National Right to Life President and Pro-Life Perspective Host Carol Tobias began in 1959 when a hugely influential report led to “reform” of protective state abortion laws, culminating in the repeal of ALL state abortion laws in Roe v. Wade.
Today Mrs. Tobias resumes her narrative on July 30, 1987, when President Ronald Reagan announced that programs which “provide counseling and referral for abortion services as a method of family planning will not be eligible for Title 10 funds,” thereby cutting off some federal money from organizations like Planned Parenthood. Later in 1987, the President appointed a federal task force to encourage adoption as an alternative to abortion.
Over the next two years, there was the tremendous fight over the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Robert Bork’s which pro-abortion forces thwarted, followed by the decision of the French government to approve the licensing of RU 486 for use in that country. At home the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an “Import Bulletin” banning the importation of RU 486 for personal use. Alas that eventually fell by the wayside.
Veterans of the Movement will never forget April 1989, when pro-abortion groups rallied in Washington, D.C. (whose numbers the media vastly exaggerated), followed by a vastly larger “Rally for Life” celebration the following year (which the media predictably vastly underestimated).
1989 also saw Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld portions of a Missouri law and found that Constitution does not require the government to make public facilities such as hospitals available for use in performing abortions. In November Mrs. Tobias tells us,
“the so-called ‘Freedom of Choice Act’ was introduced for the first time in the U.S. House. The bill was inaccurately described as ‘codifying’ Roe v. Wade into federal law. In fact, FOCA went far beyond that. That same month, Democratic pro-life Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey signed the Abortion Control Act which was challenged and eventually went before the U.S. Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.”
Be sure to take a few minutes to listen to today’s episode, and any others you may have missed this week. The URL is www.prolifeperspective.com. Please share this with your pro-life friends using your social networks.