RE: Pro-life amendments to budget resolution
Dear Senator:
During consideration of the budget resolution (S. Con. Res. 8), amendments may be offered that will allow you to express your support for three crucial pro-life measures, as described below. The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of state right-to-life organizations, urges you to vote to advance these amendments, and intends to include the roll calls (which will occur during the “vote-a-rama”) in the NRLC scorecard of key pro-life votes of the 113th Congress.
The amendments are:
-- Amendment No. 252 by Senator Lee, expressing the sense of the Senate that Congress should enact the District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. The District Council of the District of Columbia, using delegated congressional authority, has repealed the entire abortion law, making abortion legal for any reason until the moment of birth in the nation’s capital. There is substantial scientific evidence that an unborn child will experience great pain while being aborted by 20 weeks after fertilization (about the beginning of the sixth month), if not earlier; the referenced legislation would make abortion after that point unlawful in the federal district, unless the mother’s life is endangered. The bill is similar to legislation that has been enacted in eight states since 2010.
-- Amendment No. 292 by Senator Rubio, expressing the sense of the Senate that Congress should enact S. 369, the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA). Parental notification or parental consent laws, consistent with existing Supreme Court case law, are in effect in more than half the states. However, these laws are often circumvented -- activity that is actively encouraged by abortion clinics’ out-of-state advertising in non-notification states, highlighting the avoidance of parental notification as a selling point. The CIANA requires an abortionist, before performing an abortion on a minor from a different state, to notify one parent in the home state. However, this federal notification requirement would not apply if any one of the following five conditions exists: (1) the minor is accompanied by a parent; (2) the abortionist is already required to notify a parent under his own state's law, and he complies with that requirement; (3) the minor has already received authorization from a judge in her home state (“judicial bypass”), where the home-state law provides for such judicial authorization; (4) the minor declares that she is the victim of “sexual abuse, neglect, or physical abuse by a parent,” in which case the abortionist will not notify a parent, but will instead notify the appropriate state agency in the home state; or (5) in a case in which the minor’s life is in danger, in which case the notification will occur after the fact.
-- Amendment No. 332 by Senator Vitter, expressing the sense of the Senate that the Congress should enact S. 138, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA), which would ban the use of abortion for sex selection. PRENDA would make it an offense, punishable by up to five years imprisonment, to knowingly do any one of the following four things: (1) perform an abortion “knowing that such abortion is sought based on the sex or gender of the child”; (2) use “force or threat of force . . . for the purpose of coercing a sex-selection abortion”; (3) solicit or accept funds to perform a sex-selection abortion; or (4) transport a woman into the U.S. or across state lines for this purpose. The bill explicitly provides, “A woman upon whom a sex-selection abortion is performed may not be prosecuted or held civilly liable for any violation of this section, or for a conspiracy to violate this section.” The bill also explicitly provides that healthcare providers do not have any “affirmative duty to inquire as to the motivation for the abortion, absent the healthcare provider having knowledge or information that the abortion is being sought based on the sex or gender of the child.”
NRLC respectfully urges you to vote to set aside any procedural obstacles and to adopt these amendments, and intends to include the roll calls in our scorecard for the 113th Congress.
Sincerely,
Douglas Johnson
NRLC Legislative Director
Susan T. Muskett, J.D.
Senior Legislative Counsel
Source: National Right to Life Committee
