"Facts of Life" Email: February 14, 2003

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February 14, 2003

Bans on Human Cloning and Partial-Birth Abortions Re-introduced and moving in Congress. The U. S. House of Representatives is expected to vote the week of February 24 on the issue of "human embryo farms," as H.R. 534, the Weldon-Stupak Human Cloning Prohibition Act was approved by the House Judiciary Committee on February 12. (The Senate version is the Brownback-Landrieu bill, S. 245.) A "substitute amendment," which will allow human embryos to be created by cloning for the purpose of research and destruction, will likely have to be defeated before the vote on H.R. 534 will occur. The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was re-introduced as H.R. 760 by Congressman Steve Chabot (R-OH) in the House and as S.3 by Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) in the U.S. Senate. Congressional leaders indicated that both houses may take initial action on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban within the next month or two. For more information on these and other pro-life issues in Congress check out www.nrlc.org.and the Legislative Action Center there.

Senator Dianne Feinstein joins with formerly pro-life Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) to introduce a bill that "would give a green light to the establishment of human embryo farms." S. 303, introduced on February 5, falsely labeled a bill to make "human cloning a crime," actually permits human cloning for research, allowing human embryos to be harvested for their parts. Bush Administration officials have repeatedly warned that legislation to permit human cloning for research would be subject to a veto.

Various statements by Feinstein and Hatch claim that their legislation would permit research only on "unfertilized eggs" that could not become "human beings." Doug Johnson, NRLC Legislative Director, dismissed that preposterous possibility, saying that "Cloning is, by definition, reproduction without sexual fertilization, so every cloned mammal alive today is unfertilized. If an human embryo created by cloning instead of fertilization is implanted in a womb, is born, and lives to be eighty, she will still be unfertilized-- but she will be human. NRLC believes that every member of the human species should be recognized as a human being with intrinsic human rights, regardless of the circumstances of his or her creation." More at http://www.nrlc.org/Killing_Embryos/cloningbackrounder021003.html .

Democrats in the U.S. Senate were still blocking a vote on the nomination of Miguel Estrada for the U. S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, when the Senate left for a two week recess. The filibuster is expected to pick up where it left off on their return. This is a good time to contact Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer to urge them to support the nomination of the first Hispanic judge to this important court. Go to the Legislative Action Center at www.nrlc.org to send your message or to obtain phone or FAX numbers for their offices.

Justice Antonin Scalia had some incisive comments Thursday regarding the politicization of the judicial selection process, including this observation: "We're not looking for good lawyers anymore. The most important thing we look for are judges who will read into the constitution the rights that we like, and read out of the Constitution the rights that we don't like." See:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=558&u=/ap/20030214/ap_on_go_su_co/scalia_judges&printer=1

The California Senate approved Governor Davis's nomination of abortionist Theodore N. Hariton to the California Health Facilities Financing Authority on a 21-12 vote with 7 senators not voting. This is an agency that oversees funding for nonprofit health facilities, including some that provide abortions. Dr. Hariton does abortions up to 13 weeks, and refers late-term abortion patients to his former partner (who practices in the same building), Stephen Pine, M.D., a physician responsible for abortions that killed at least two women, Belinda Byrd, age 37, in 1987; and Yvonne Tanner, age 22, in 1984. Democrats in the Senate supported the nomination and Republicans opposed, except for those not voting, Republicans Dick Ackerman: Bruce McPherson, and Bill Morrow (who was absent), and Democrats Debra Bowen, Wes Chesbro, Martha Escutia, and John Vasconcellos.

A spokesman for a California-based organization, Medical Students for Choice, claims that the greatest obstacle to safe and legal abortions is the dearth of trained providers. Devika Singh, president of the organization formed in 1993 in San Francisco, was speaking to a crowd of 100 abortion-rights advocates on Saturday in Amherst, MA. Singh said her group is trying to ensure that medical students are trained and knowledgeable about abortions. http://www.gazettenet.com/02102003/five_col/4221.htm

California ProLife Council (CPLC) (www.californiaprolife.org.) is the largest statewide organization in California solely dedicated to pro-life issues. CPLC is a non-sectarian, non-partisan, non-profit grassroots organization of pro-life groups and individuals in California dedicated to protecting and fostering the most basic value of our society—respect for LIFE itself. We seek to educate our community in regard to abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide, to identify and organize the pro-life population of the state into an effective team, and to restore respect for human life to public policy. California ProLife Council is the California affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee, Inc. (www.nrlc.org).

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