House Looks the Mother Way
House leaders are giving Americans an early Mother’s Day present — a mid-week vote on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act! After a five-month tug-of-war, the rape and incest issues that snagged the bill are finally ironed out, and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) says conservatives are ready to deliver on the promise they made in January: getting the measure back on track. Under this latest version of the bill, members have closed some of the loopholes and added even more protective layers to the five-month ban, especially where young women are concerned. Apart from blocking abortions after 20 weeks, when babies suffer most, the new language includes a 48-hour waiting period for any woman requesting a late-term abortion under the exceptions — and ensures that she’s had counseling and medical help. It also adds a key Born-Alive Infants Protection component, which guarantees that babies who survive an abortion would get the same hospital care that any other preemie would.
House leaders are giving Americans an early Mother’s Day present — a mid-week vote on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act! After a five-month tug-of-war, the rape and incest issues that snagged the bill are finally ironed out, and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) says conservatives are ready to deliver on the promise they made in January: getting the measure back on track.
Under this latest version of the bill, members have closed some of the loopholes and added even more protective layers to the five-month ban, especially where young women are concerned. Apart from blocking abortions after 20 weeks, when babies suffer most, the new language includes a 48-hour waiting period for any woman requesting a late-term abortion under the exceptions — and ensures that she’s had counseling and medical help. It also adds a key Born-Alive Infants Protection component, which guarantees that babies who survive an abortion would get the same hospital care that any other preemie would.
If a girl under 18 is pregnant because of rape or incest, H.R. 36 requires that abortion clinics notify social services or the police to stop the abuse from happening again. And if doctors violate the law, Rep. Trent Franks’s (R-Ariz.) bill gives women and young girls’ parents the right to sue. Most pro-life leaders think that if the bill had been law when Kermit Gosnell was operating, there’s a good chance that most of his victims would be alive today. The new measure is so strong that experts believe it could save as many as 13,000 babies a year — enough to populate St. Augustine, Florida!
Of course, the Left likes to argue that the bill is extreme — but what’s actually extreme is our current law. Believe it or not, America is one of just seven countries that allow abortion past 20 weeks. For a country blessed with such incredible prenatal technology, it’s mind-blowing that we haven’t changed our laws to reflect the basic personhood of these tiny humans. Science has expanded our knowledge of unborn pain, and it’s time for the law to catch up. What kind of inhumane culture gives “wanted” babies anesthesia but tortures others?
“Life is precious,” Leader McCarthy said, “and we must do everything we can to fight for it and protect it. Our commitment for the House to consider this important legislation has been steadfast, and I’m proud of the work of our members to prepare this bill for House consideration next week.” For Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Diane Black (R-Tenn.) it was a relief to get past the internal road blocks and bring something to the floor that everyone can be proud of. “It will be good to have a truly united pro-life conference,” Rep. Smith told reporters.
And the bill doesn’t just have the support of Republicans; it also has the overwhelming support of a majority of Americans. Once they hear the facts on fetal pain, as many as 84% of people throw their support behind the five-month ban. “Between 20 and 30 weeks post-fertilization, an unborn child has more pain receptors per square inch of skin than at any other time in his or her life, with only a very thin layer of skin for protection.”
It’s time to give these tiny children the real protection that H.R. 36 provides. Celebrate Mother’s Day by helping create more of them! Contact your congressman today and encourage them to support Rep. Franks’s bill, H.R. 36! Also, don’t miss the new Hill column by FRC’s Jamie Dangers, “Taking Back the Narrative on Pain.”
Un-Fairfax: Board Snubs Parents, Passes Gender Policy
Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said he’d love to abolish the Department of Education — and after [Thursday] night’s Fairfax school board meeting, he’d have plenty of takers. The Virginia district — America’s 10th largest — outraged local parents and pastors by sneaking a “transgender” policy through its FSPS board without a single public hearing. Like Minnesota, which exploded in controversy in December after making its sports teams “gender-fluid,” Fairfax County is taking a wild detour from other districts in the state — and blaming the DOE for it in the process.
According to Deputy Superintendent Steven Lockard, the Obama administration will pull the County’s funding if the district doesn’t makes its bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams transgender-friendly. But let’s face it: these officials have an obligation to listen to the parents, not the Obama administration. As a nation, we are completely losing our understanding of federalism. State and local officials have been transformed into lapdogs for the federal government in exchange for a few crumbs of federal funding.
“… [I]t is the gravitas in overreach of the federal government and the implications thereof that is so very chilling,” school board member Elizabeth Schultz told Fox News’s Todd Starnes. “It could have implications for every public school district in the nation. If they’re going to come for us, they’re going to come for them next.”
Of course, this is par for the course for the Obama administration, which continues to use federal agencies as a club to beat local communities into submission. They’ve done it with Common Core, Race to the Top, and now its radical sexual agenda. When Virginia moms and dads found out about the board’s ambush, they moved as quickly as they could to resist it. Local pastors, Catholic dioceses, and citizen groups mobilized huge crowds to oppose the policy. They spoke up in rallies, through emails, and phone calls, but the district didn’t listen. Even at last night’s meeting, the room was packed out with objectors who shouted, booed, stormed out, and even knelt in prayer. People everywhere had buttons and signs pleading with the board to take a deep breath and consider the consequences for student safety, privacy, and competition.
Members refused, smugly passing the measure 10-1 (Schultz the only “no”). It was a jaw-dropping decision for most parents, who can’t imagine their daughter sharing showers and bathrooms with teenage boys. Burke Community Church Pastor Martin Baker couldn’t believe his eyes. “The damage and destruction to our children, teens, and impacted adults will be incalculable,” he told reporters somberly. Unfortunately, too few people in this country seem to realize that local elections matter. And, as liberals have bragged, they’ve been laying the groundwork for a policy like this for years, slowly padding local commissions and boards with far-Left activists.
But if the school board won’t listen to parents, they’ll listen to votes. And dozens of moms and dads vowed, “We will remember in November.”
Sadly, this is another example of education’s total disregard for the legitimate concerns of parents. It’s time for churches to take back their schools and communities by replacing the elected officials who are more concerned about what bureaucrats in Washington want than voters in their communities. Parents, if your children are in the public schools, it’s time to prayerful consider alternatives. The spiritual and moral future of your children is at risk in this increasingly anti-Christian environment. Moms and dads will never regret the sacrifices they made to ensure — not just the academic wellbeing of their kids, but the moral and spiritual wellbeing too. But too many parents will look back with regrets on losing their children to the talons of an increasingly godless culture.
For more on the Fairfax controversy, [check out] Peter’s interview below.
Baltimore, Marry-Land?
The turmoil in Baltimore may have stopped in the streets, but there’s still plenty of it in the home. While local leaders, churches, and parents search for answers to the violence, FRC’s Dr. Pat Fagan may have found one: family structure. In MARRI’s latest report, Pat found that only 16% of 15 to 17-year-olds in Baltimore were raised in an intact, married family. The family breakdown is so severe that Pat classified it as “one of the five least intact counties of America.”
“That this level of public violence happened is not surprising, given all that the data tell us about the family life of the inner city.” Dr. Fagan told the Washington Times. “Three and four generations of single parents family life puts in place conditions of poverty, addiction, crime, and abuse. Children who grow up in these conditions become hardened and distorted, as the riots made visible. The solution lies in the opposite direction: love and fidelity between fathers and mothers, chastity for the young so that they can be loving and faithful in turn…” In other words, if the community is looking for answers, strong families is at the top. For more on the power of healthy, intact parenting in crises like Baltimore, check out Rob Schwarzwalder and Ken Blackwell’s joint op-ed, “Baltimore’s Missing Fathers.”
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
