Alongside another controversial provision in the 2011 defense authorization bill pending in Congress is language that illustrates the continuing challenge of taxpayer support for elective abortions. Included in the version of the bill that emerged from the Senate Armed Services Committee is an amendment sponsored by Sen. Roland Burris (D–IL) that would allow the use of military facilities around the world for “pre-paid” abortions.

The policy at stake has a long history, but for most of the past four decades, decisions by various Administrations and laws adopted by Congress have limited public funding for abortions in military hospitals as well as any use of those hospitals to perform elective abortions. The first iteration of the policy was President Richard Nixon’s “federalist” instruction in 1971, two years before the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion nationwide. Nixon directed the Department of Defense (DOD) to ensure that military medical facilities followed the law of the jurisdiction in which those facilities were located. At that time, a majority of the states and the District of Columbia had statutes that outlawed abortion under most circumstances.

Under President Ford, the DOD reversed the Nixon policy and both permitted and financed abortions in military facilities. During a one-year period at that time, 26,000 service members and dependents obtained abortions in military hospitals. In 1978, Congress adopted an annual funding amendment—similar to the Hyde Amendment governing spending by the Department of Health and Human Services—denying the use of federal funds for elective abortions in military health programs.

With this policy in place, a number of military facilities overseas, particularly in countries where abortion was illegal under local law, established their own system for “pre-paid” abortions, where the service members or dependents provided their own funds for the procedure. The abortion rate declined but still totaled more than 1,300 in one year under the policy. The Reagan Administration moved in the 1980s to end federal involvement in funding or promoting abortion. In 1985, Congress made the annual abortion funding amendment for the DOD permanent law, and in June 1988 the Reagan DOD issued a formal policy barring the use of military hospitals and facilities for pre-paid abortions.

On his first day in office in January 1993, President Clinton undid all of the Reagan-era abortion policies he had the authority to reach, reestablishing the use of military health facilities for privately funded abortions. The 1985 law against direct funding for abortion, however, remained in place. Then, in 1995, Congress stepped in and wrote the law that exists today, a statutory restriction on allowing the use of DOD facilities for elective abortions on the pre-paid basis Clinton had authorized. The restriction echoed the rationale of the Reagan Administration that allowing elective abortions in such settings would show “insensitivity to the spirit of the Congressionally-enacted policy of withholding government involvement in the provision of abortions.”

Allowing elective abortions in military hospitals presents a whole new set of issues for the Administration. Taxpayer funding of the procedure may still be barred by law, but allowing elective abortions in military health facilities would inevitably involve the use of taxpayer-supplied resources and personnel.

The Burris amendment also presents questions of conscience for military personnel, particularly administrative staff, who are protected under current law from involvement in the procedure. One of the strongest impetuses for President Clinton’s 1993 directive was the fact that military medical personnel, trained to provide life-saving medical care on the home front and in the battlefield, almost uniformly objected to the use of military health care facilities for elective abortion. Because of these objections, the Clinton Administration resorted to efforts to identify civilian physicians who could perform the abortions in military settings.

Moreover, the Burris amendment would put the U.S. military in the unenviable position of possibly hiring private doctors willing to perform abortions on bases in countries where the practice is limited or prohibited by law. The impact of such a policy on the public diplomacy objectives of the U.S. has not been evaluated.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R–MS) recently noted the potential impact of the Burris amendment on an already strained military health care system. Meanwhile, the Obama Administration has not weighed in on the Burris amendment. To borrow a phrase from a prior phase of this debate, Burris’s proposal seems to show “insensitivity to the spirit” of President Obama’s executive order on public subsidies for abortion.

In Gulag Bound:

Call to Stop Taxpayer Funded Abortion & DREAM – the Senate is to Vote 2:15pm ET! – Updated

September 21, 2010, 8:55am By Admin 1 Comment (Edit)

From The Freedomist, this morning:

Defense Spending Bill To Allow Tax-Payer Funded Abortion…

Barack Obama and the culture of death he supports in Congress is attempting to insert language into the Defense Spending Bill that will allow tax dollars to pay for abortions on military bases. The language comes in the form of an amendment slipped into the Defense Spending Bill at the dead of the night by the progressive proponents of abortion. This amendment will allow ‘prepaid’ abortions to occur on U.S. Military Bases. There is no way around the fact that this amendment would allow for the further use of American tax dollars to fund the murder of the unborn.
continues

Contact your U.S. Senators through this link.
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Original DI 6:00am CT, Tallulah Starr: Sneaky Sen. Harry Reid, (NV-D) has scheduled a 2:15pm ET vote for DREAM, ironically attached like an undocumented alien to America’s Defense Spending Bill (Orwellian “doublethink” in action). In short, the bill, now amendment, is another attempt at back door amnesty at a time when Americans are overwhelmingly against any increased spending.

If passed, DREAM will force an unbelievable financial burden on states already collapsing under the weight of out-of-control social programs—and create educational and social entitlements for illegals up to the age of 35.

Call your Senators and tell them “No.” While you’re at it, call them all!

Eric Odom has provided a list of Senators, including their DC and district phone numbers. Check the list and call: http://liberty.com/dream-act/.

Don’t let this bill pass!

DREAM ACT AMNESTY VOTING STARTS TODAY

Could Go Either Way — Pro-Amnesty Forces Say They Will Win
Because They Will Outphone Us For The First Time

SENATORS FROM THE VIRGINIAS MAY HOLD KEY
— PLEASE PHONE THEM

The first vote is set for 2:15 this afternoon.

If we could get half of these four Senators from West Virginia and Virginia, we might guarantee a defeat for the DREAM Act amnesty.

The pro-amnesty side is counting all but Goodwin as a definite YES on amnesty — and Goodwin as simply “unclear.”

The pro-amnesty side is out-phoning your Senators right now. We need every one of you who live in Virgina and West Virginia to pick up a phone and make your voice heard.

(D-Virgina) Sen. Warner
D.C. Office: 202-224-2023
Local Office: 703-442-0670

(D-Virginia) Sen. Webb
D.C. Office: 202-224-4024
Local Office: 804-771-2221

(D-West Virginia) Sen. Goodwin
D.C. Office: 202-224-3954
Local Office: 304-342-5855

(D-West Virginia) Sen. Rockefeller
D.C. Office: 202-224-6472
Local Office: 304-347-5372

These are four Democrats with a decided tilt in favor of illegal immigration but representing states that overwhelmingly oppose it.

There is no reason other than blind Party loyalty for these four Senators to be considered likely YES votes for amnesty.

Please overwhelm these Senators with your phone calls.

Pro-amnesty zealots are predicting that a massive, last-minute phone bank effort by the website DailyKos and the SEIU unions will bury our anti-amnesty voices today. (See the boasts lower in this email.)

They claim that they have processed more than 60,000 pro-amnesty phone calls to Congress through their phone banks!

We need your phone calls, urging opposition to any amnesty for illegal aliens during this time of incredible unemployment.

NumbersUSA had grassroots activists in the Capitol yesterday visiting nearly every Senate office. In many offices, staffers said your phone calls are matching the pro-amnesty calls 50-50. But many more said we are losing 40-60 and by even more.

Friends, always in the past, Senators have faced an amnesty vote knowing that phone calls were running 80-20 and even 99-1 in our favor. It is part of the reason we have beaten every amnesty since 2000.

Please don’t let yourself or your country down by failing to make a critical phone call today (and hopefully several of them).

CONGRESSIONAL SWITCHBOARD — 202-224-3121

It appears that the vote today will be very close. If the Senate Leadership succeeds in its first vote today, we seem likely to have a second vote on Wednesday. Senators are being lobbied furiously by the pro-amnesty forces. They and their staffs need to hear from you.

When you phone, stress that:

* DREAM amnesty has zero enforcement. Illegal-alien teenagers are in their current predicament because their parents were allowed to illegally take jobs and then hold them. The DREAM amnesty would allow millions more parents to do the same in the future.

* Millions more illegal aliens will be enticed to come and take U.S. jobs once they see the way previous illegal aliens are rewarded by the DREAM amnesty.

* This new flow of illegal workers will further the suffering of 22 million unemployed Americans who want a job but can’t find one.

* A vote for DREAM amnesty is a vote in favor of bringing in more illegal foreign workers and keeping millions of Americans jobless.

PRO-AMNESTY BLOG BOASTS ABOUT OVERWHELMING US
IN THE PHONE ACTIVISM EFFORT

On the immigration law website called ILW.com today, we found this troubling boast:

Democratic activists across the country are banding together for the largest phone call campaign in pro-immigration history.

DailyKos, one of the most important progressive websites has joined forces with the Service Employees International Union, the most pro-immigration among the major unions, to phone bank the Senate switchboard into a jammed state.

We believe this will be the first time ever that the pro-immigration calls will out-number the anti-immigrationists. We congratulate both DailyKos and SEIU on this outstanding initiative and we urge our readers to participate, seehere for how.

In the past, those Senators who wanted to weasel out of supporting immigration benefits legislation have pointed to the lop-sided numbers in phone calls for and against. The numbers often cited by such nervous Senators were 1-to-40, 1-to-70, and even 1-to-100 against the pro-side.

For the first time, these nervous nellies will have the kind of numbers they have demanded from pro-immigration advocates; the better phone ratios will provide political cover for YES votes on DREAM.

With grassroots pro-immigration supporters lighting up the phone-lines across the country, the spotlight is now on the Democratic leadership, especially President Obama and Majority Leader Reid to ensure that there are no Democratic defections on DREAM.

— From the ILW.com pro-amnesty website

Click here to read about the DREAM Act amnesty that Senate leaders are trying to attach to the Defense Authorization bill.

IF YOU HAVE NEVER PHONED A SENATE OFFICE BEFORE, let me assure you that it can be very easy.

1. Just call and say hello to the staffer who answers.

2. Say you are calling in opposition to including the DREAM Act amnesty in the Defense bill.

3. You can give maybe one reason why you think DREAM is a bad idea.

4. Thank the staffer for listening and say good-bye.

Friends, it is most important that you get these Senators’ staffers thinking about DREAM in terms of jobs and unemployed Americans.

PLEASE DON’T DELAY. MAKE YOUR PHONE CALLS NOW.

THANKS,

Roy Beck’s signature

Roy Beck, President NumbersUSA

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