Dangers of Freedom of Choice Act

Special Report - Nov 17, 2008
One of the nation’s leading pro-life organizations is sponsoring a campaign aimed at educating Americans about the dangers of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) and what they can do to fight its enactment. President-elect Barack Obama has promised that one of his first priorities will be to sign the sweeping pro-abortion legislation into law, if it is enacted by Congress. In response, Americans United for Life (AUL) has launched a web site, www.fightfoca.com, where citizens can learn about FOCA and sign a petition expressing their opposition to it, which will then be sent to President-elect Obama and members of the U.S. House and Senate, once the legislation is reintroduced. So far, over 130,000 people have signed the AUL petition.

Although FOCA has been introduced in Congress several times since 1989, it was most recently introduced in April 2007, with 109 co-sponsors in the House—including Representative David E. Price (D-NC)—and 19 co-sponsors in the Senate. The House version (H.R. 1964) of the 2007 FOCA states: “It is the policy of the United States that every woman has the fundamental right to choose to bear a child, to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability, or to terminate a pregnancy after fetal viability when necessary to protect the life or health of the woman.” It also prohibits the government from denying or interfering with a woman’s “right” to abortion, and specifically applies retroactively to “every Federal, State and local statute, ordinance, regulation, administrative order, decision, policy, practice, or other action enacted, adopted, or implemented before, on, or after the date of enactment of this Act.”

According to AUL, FOCA would “eliminate every restriction on abortion nationwide,” including state laws that ban partial birth abortion (31 states) and require parental consent or notification for minor abortions (34 states, including North Carolina). FOCA must be reintroduced by lawmakers in the upcoming session of Congress and passed before it can be signed into law by the new president; however, AUL anticipates the “fight over FOCA to begin as soon as the next Congress begins.”

“Thirty-five years after Roe, abortion supporters are dismayed that abortion remains a divisive issue and that their radical agenda has not been submissively accepted by the American public,” writes AUL Vice President of Legal Affairs, Denise Burke, in an article on FOCA. “Their weapon to impose their will on the unwilling American public is FOCA.”

Copyright © 2008. North Carolina Family Policy Council. All rights reserved.