"Facts of Life" Email:  May 17, 2002

Facts of Life—May 17, 2002

SB 1301, the bill that will sanction non-physician drug-induced abortions was approved by the California Senate on May 16, 22-12.  Senator Ray Haynes (R-Riverside) offered amendments, which would have restored the “physician only” provision of current law to this so-called “Reproductive Privacy Act.” They were rejected by the same margin of 22-12.  Not a single Democrat supported the effort to retain this minimal protection for women choosing RU 486 and other non-surgical abortions, and only one Republican, Bruce McPherson of Santa Cruz supported the bill. McPherson did not vote on the amendment.  Senator Sheila Kuehl, the author of SB 1301 (Planned Parenthood is the sponsor), denied any certain connection between RU 486 and the six recent “adverse events,” including 2 deaths, reported on April 19 by the federal FDA and Danco Laboratories, the manufacturer of RU 486.  
            Immediate efforts should be underway to contact your Assembly representatives on SB 1301 and this very dangerous and substantive change in California law.  Assembly committee hearings will be scheduled sometime after June 3^rd.  SB 1301 was only assigned to one committee in the Senate, so this bill appears to be on a fast track.  Click here to see the vote on the Haynes amendment:   http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_1301-1350/sb_1301_vote_20020516_0941AM_sen_floor.html. Click here to see the Senate vote on SB 1301:   http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_1301-1350/sb_1301_vote_20020516_0953AM_sen_floor.html.

The U.S. Senate debate on a human cloning ban will apparently be delayed once again.  Senator Tom Daschle now says that the debate and votes will not occur until after the Memorial Day recess. Besides the Brownback-Landrieu bill (S.1899), which is identical to the House-passed version and supported by pro-life organizations, there are several competing proposals which would not actually ban human cloning.  Rather they would allow human cloning for research, but require the deaths of every cloned human embryo or fetus.  One of these sham proposals (S.1758) is sponsored by our own Senator Diane Feinstein. 

Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Orange County) once again attempted unsuccessfully to provide abortions at U.S. Military facilities.  The proposed amendment to the Department of Defense authorization bill was rejected on May 10 by a vote of 215-202.  Three Republicans in our California delegation supported the pro-abortion amendment-- Mary Bono, Steve Horn and Bill Thomas.  No California Democrats opposed it.  The current ban has been in place since 1996, but it was first instituted during the Nixon administration, and was again adopted by an executive order of the first President Bush in the early ‘90s.  From 1993 to 1996, during the Clinton administration, abortions were allowed at military facilities, but no military physicians would perform elective abortions.  To find out how your Representative voted, point your web browser to
http://clerkweb.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.exe?year=2002&rollnumber=153

Abortion language was blocked from the final statement resulting from the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children.  Late last Friday, May 10, the Bush administration, other pro-life states and the Holy See were successful in striking “reproductive health services,” a phrase recognized by all involved to include abortion services, from a document entitled “A World Fit for Children.”  With the Bush administration in place the American delegation will no longer be forcing abortion policies on the rest of the world.
            Language in a previous U.N. document, The Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959), which was reiterated in the preamble of the 1989 Convention On the Rights of the Child, states that “the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.”

Belgian lawmakers approved a bill allowing assisted suicide late on May 16, after two years of parliamentary debate.  The bill had passed the Senate last year, and was approved in the House of Representatives by a vote of 86-51.  The Christian Democrats vowed an immediate challenge in court.  Only the Netherlands and the state of Oregon currently permit assisted suicide.
            According to an Associated Press report, a "patient seeking physician-assisted suicide must be in a 'hopeless' medical situation and be constantly suffering physically OR [emphasis added] psychologically," but does not need to be "in the terminal phase of his illness."  The patient must be 18 and have made "specific, voluntary and repeated" requests. 

The California ProLife Council would like to invite everyone to a debate on what it means to be human!  Set aside Friday evening, June 7, to hear Nigel M. de S. Cameron, Ph. D. and Peter Singer, Ph.D, the infamous proponent of infanticide, of Princeton University, debate “What does it mean to be human?”  Sponsored by the Center for Bioethics and Culture, and co-sponsored by CPLC and other pro-life and pro-family organizations, including co-organizer, Life Legal Defense Fund, this is a topic of central importance to many of the medical and bioethical issues facing contemporary culture. 

            Date:  Friday, June 7, 2002, 7:00 p.m.
            Location:  Calvin Simmons Theater
                                    Henry J. Kaiser Auditorium
                                    10^th Street, Oakland, CA

            Purchase tickets here:  http://www.thecbc.org/exp/conf/singer_debate.asp 
                        $25 in advance, $45 at the door