Posted on 07/28/2002 7:07:38 PM PDT by Siobhan
Dear Friends,
On Wednesday the House of Representatives passed the 2002 Partial Birth Abortion Ban with a record number of Democrats joining in. The 274 to 151 vote, with 65 Democrats breaking ranks to support the ban, shifts the onus to the Democrat-controlled Senate, where pro-life forces face a major obstacle. We need to make our voices heard if this crucial legislation is finally going to pass and so we are asking for your help.
I urge you to rally your friends and family to lobby the Senate to pass the Partial Birth Abortion Ban. The White House said in a statement that it strongly supported the bill and believes its enactment "is morally imperative and constitutionally permissible to prohibit this very abhorrent form of abortion."
Unfortunately, our fellow Catholic Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota), the Senate Majority Leader, is offering little hope that the Senate will even review the bill this year, effectively killing it.
Congress passed a similar ban twice during the Clinton administration, but both times it was vetoed by President Clinton and the Senate was unable to muster enough votes for an override. This time, with President George W. Bush ready to sign the bill, pro-abortion Democrats in the Senate, led by Daschle, appear willing to let it die. This is a historic opportunity with the House and the President strongly supporting the ban, so we must do what we can to pressure the Senate into considering and passing the bill.
Please take a moment to contact your Senators — and Senator Daschle — about this issue. No decent society can explain away a "procedure" that allows an fully-formed child to have his or her skull punctured and brains extracted because someone "chooses" it for them. And no word in our Constitution could possibly allow it. Time is running out for this Senate and this bill is needed now, so please take a moment and act.
Your Senator's contact information can be found here. Thank you for your support of Life.
In Christ,
Tom Allen
Editor & President
Catholic Exchange
Although I do not like the use of Executive Orders, I have been writing the President asking him to issue an Executive Order mandating and injunction and moratorium on all Partial Birth Abortions until the Senate votes. That may encourage Daschle to bring it to the floor.
;^ |
Pass on any suggestions you get to me- I have Murray and Cantwell. Amazingly enough, they both CLAIM to be Catholic, too!!
I'm truly blessed to have Hillary Clinton as my senator. She'll hear from me on this issue, as will her side kick, Chuckie Schumer.
Executive orders are only applicable to government officials, except to the extent that the Congress has given certain power to those individuals.
For example, the reason Clinton was able to declare a "Street Sweeper" shotgun to be a destructive device (which he did, btw, even before the passage of the "Assault Weapons" ban) is that NFA'34 provides that any firearm with a bore over 0.5" diameter is a "destructive device" unless the Secretary (i.e. Treasury Secretary) deems it to be of a type suitable for hunting or sporting purposes. Clinton told his Treasury Secretary to declare that a Street Sweeper was not suitable for such purposes; thus, it became a Destructive Device per NFA'34.
Someone did cite me some federal statutes which Bush might be able to use as "enabling legislation" to restrict certain types of abortion; unfortunately, I don't have the cite. Even with such legislation I think it would be an abusive stretch of Bush's authority, especially since homicide is a matter of state jurisdiction. Further, for Bush to attempt such an order would guarantee the election of a Democrat who would immediately recind it. Since the order would probably be held up in the courts until 2004 anyway the effect would be that Bush would commit political suicide for no gain whatsoever.
Frankly I think Republicans need to get more strategic on the abortion issue. If they played their cards right, they could win big with it (since most Americans are much more pro-life than the status quo). Unfortunately, I sometimes think they'd rather be losers on that issue.
Any proposed legislative restriction on abortion is apt to run into trouble with Roe v. Wade and subsequent court decisions. In addition, any attempt at federal anti-abortion legislation would hit another hurdle: homicide is a state crime, rather than a federal one, and different states have different standards as to when homicide is permissible or "justifiable"; a "states'-rights" judge would probably struck down a federal "partial-birth abortion" ban no matter how strongly he personally opposed abortion.
The real thing that needs to happen is for Roe v. Wade and succeeding decisions to be turned back far enough to allow states to restrict partial-birth abortion. In theory states have that power under Roe v. Wade, but state laws to implement that have nonetheless been struck down. That--the partial reversal of Roe v. Wade--is the key thing that needs to happen before any other action on the subject can really matter.
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