Barack Obama’s “Faith Tour” needs some prayers. His month-long
effort to court religious voters kicked off last week with mixed
reactions. One of its first events in Virginia drew only 15
attendees, and Obama’s Senior Religious Advisor was a
no-show at a discussion with Evangelicals.
Obama’s “family values” persona is wearing thin. His initial
strategy was for his surrogates to proclaim him
an “abortion reducer.” But lately, Obama’s “faith
and values” have not amounted to more than blaming McCain for the state of the economy.
This rhetorical shift is not surprising. Posing Obama as an
abortion-reducer was always a tough sell given his uncompromising
pro-abortion record. But maybe Obama’s team has also been reading
recent research that quantifies just how much Obama will increase
rather than decrease abortion.
By one stroke of the pen, Obama will increase abortions in the
United States by 125,000 per year, at minimum. Calculating this
increase starts with the Freedom of Choice Act, which Obama
says is his top presidential priority. FOCA is a bill
in the U.S. Congress that will do for abortion in the 21st century
what the ERA would have done for radical feminism in the 1970s.
Reporters usually describe FOCA as “codifying Roe v.
Wade,” but this is a vast understatement. The Supreme Court
allows states to create some obstacles to abortion, like parental
consent for minors, but FOCA establishes abortion as a “fundamental
right” which the government cannot “deny or interfere with.” Notably, the
current version of FOCA omits an exception that would have allowed
states to continue to regulate abortion as they do now.
In fact, when it comes to FOCA, abortion advocates and opponents
finally have something to agree on: FOCA will establish an absolute
right to abortion, eliminating every legal limit on the
practice.
LAST WEEK the U.S. Catholic Bishops added their legal analysis to that of pro-life groups
Americans United
for Life and the Family Research Council, concluding that FOCA
will sweep away all state abortion restrictions. The bill’s
sponsors variously concur, including NOW, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and Senator Barbara Boxer.
FOCA’s elimination of pro-life laws shows how much Obama will
increase abortion. Dr. Michael New has published several studies on
abortion reduction and was cited in a Washington Post
article last week. His research shows that
abortions are reduced in statistically significant ways by state
pro-life laws requiring parental involvement in abortion, requiring informed consent, and prohibiting state Medicaid
funding of abortion.
The Post confirms this view by reporting that the
abortion rate dropped steadily not only under President Clinton and
but also under both Presidents Bush. Obama had denied this fact, but it shows that abortion reduction
coincides with the passage of pro-life laws rather than with
presidential economic policy.
Specifically, Dr. New’s data shows that pro-life laws reduce abortion in the
United States by at least 125,000 every year. The number is reached
by counting the projected number of women of childbearing age in 2009 in
each of the majority of states that have the laws that FOCA will strike down, and then
applying Dr. New’s reduction rates.
Thus when Obama promised the abortion giant Planned Parenthood
that “the first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of
Choice Act,” he was effectively promising to increase abortions by
125,000 per year in the United States. And since Planned Parenthood
performs 25% of all abortions in the country, that promise
meant a fat $15 million bonus for PP.
Obama’s increase in abortions will be even larger, though in
ways not yet quantifiable. States will be blocked from passing new
pro-life laws, and Obama will fund abortions federally as well as
internationally. FOCA will also strike down all bans on partial
birth abortion, and will force states to violate the conscience
rights of pro-life doctors.
OBAMA’S CLAIM to otherwise reduce abortions by funding pregnancy is
highly suspect. The yeoman’s work of giving women financial
assistance to choose life is done by the thousands of pro-life
pregnancy centers throughout the country. Yet Obama has not and,
politically, could not support those centers. Planned Parenthood is
working to outlaw rather than fund them, so as to halt any
competition.
In contrast, the McCain/Palin platform calls for government assistance to
pro-life centers. And there is no reason to believe McCain would
veto any pregnancy funding that Obama would instead approve.
Comparing these two candidates, nothing at all supports Obama’s
abortion-reduction hypothesis.
“Obama pro-lifers” are thus an oxymoron. They must utterly
ignore the fact about Obama’s six-figure abortion increase, while
chanting impossibly vague notions about how “improving the economy”
will reduce abortion.
Even Obama sympathizers are noticing that the Obama campaign is reverting
back to straight-up abortion advocacy (including ads that attack a disabled abortion survivor).
All this does not bode well for book-signings on the “Faith
Tour.” It is may well be a farewell tour for Obama’s “abortion
reduction” message, and for his would-be Evangelical voters.
