The key question is: “When does life begin?”

During the 2008 presidential campaing, John McCain said that life begins at conception. How does McCain know this?

Since no one scientifically knows when life begins, goverment — all levels of government — ought to stay out of the matter of abortion.

Government is not competent to determine when life begins.

Decisions about abortion, biological evolution, polygamy, and homosexual marriage ought to be left to individuals. Government should stay out of such matters.

Richard S. Colman
Orinda, CA
Jan. 29, 2009

First it is argued that the recent Harris Poll was somehow tainted as if it does not meet accepted standards and methodology. To cast doubt on it is ad hominem argument and does not mean anything.

Calling opponents Idiot Morons is also ad hominem. Together these first two postures show the pro FOCA crowd only wants to kill debate as well as babies.

Most idiot morons understand that FOCA does a lot more than the whitewash summary you propose. FOCA is an end-run around Constitutional case law by a small minority that cannot win at the ballot.

If implemented, FOCA would invalidate common-sense, protective laws that the majority of Americans support. It will not protect or empower women. Instead, it would protect and promote the abortion industry, sacrifice women and their health to a radical political ideology, and silence the voices of everyday Americans who want to engage in a meaningful public discussion over the availability, safety, and even desirability of abortion.

FOCA would specifically invalidate any “statute, ordinance, regulation, administrative order, decision, policy, practice, or other action” of any federal, state, or local government or governmental official (or any person acting under government authority) that would “deny or interfere with a woman’s right to choose” abortion, or that would “discriminate against the exercise of the right . . . in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.”

FOCA creates a new and dangerously radical “right.” It establishes the right to abortion as a “fundamental right,” elevating it to the same status as the right to vote and the right to free speech (which, unlike the abortion license, are specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution). Critically, in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court did not define abortion as a “fundamental right.”10 And with the exception of one justice’s attempt in 1983 to distort the Court’s abortion jurisprudence by framing the abortion license as a “fundamental right,” the Court has not subsequently defined abortion as a “fundamental right.” Thus, FOCA goes beyond any Supreme Court decision in enshrining unlimited abortion-on-demand into American law.

FOCA would also subject laws regulating or even touching on abortion to judicial review using a “strict scrutiny” framework of analysis. This is the highest standard American courts can apply and is typically reserved for laws impacting such fundamental rights as the right to free speech and the right to vote. Prior to the Supreme Court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (which substituted the “undue burden” standard for the more stringent “strict scrutiny” analysis), abortion-related laws (such parental involvement for minors and minimum health and safety standards for abortion clinics) were almost uniformly struck down under “strict scrutiny” analysis.

If enacted, FOCA would retroactively be applied to all federal and state abortion-related laws and would result in their invalidation.

In elevating abortion to a fundamental right, FOCA poses an undeniable and irreparable danger to common-sense laws supported by a majority of Americans. Among the more than 550 federal and state laws that FOCA would nullify are:

Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003

Hyde Amendment (restricting taxpayer funding of abortions)

Restrictions on abortions performed at military hospitals

Restrictions on insurance coverage for abortion for federal employees

Informed consent laws

Waiting periods

Parental consent and notification laws

Health and safety regulations for abortion clinics

Requirements that licensed physicians perform abortions

“Delayed enforcement” laws (banning abortion when Roe v. Wade is overturned and/or the authority to restrict abortion is returned to the states)

Bans on partial-birth abortion

Bans on abortion after viability.

FOCA’s apparent attempt to limit post-viability abortions is illusory. Under FOCA, post-viability abortions are expressly permitted to protect the woman’s “health.” Within the context of abortion, “health” has been interpreted so broadly that FOCA would not actually proscribe any abortion before or after viability.

Limits on public funding for elective abortions (thus, making American taxpayers fund a procedure that many find morally objectionable)

Limits on the use of public facilities (such has public hospitals and medical schools at state universities) for abortions

State and federal legal protections for individual healthcare providers who decline to participate in abortions

Legal protections for Catholic and other religiously-affiliated hospitals who, while providing care to millions of poor and uninsured Americans, refuse to allow abortions within their facilities

Notably, pro-abortion groups do not deny FOCA’s draconian impact. For example, Planned Parenthood has explained, “FOCA will supercede anti-choice laws that restrict the right to choose, including laws that prohibit the public funding of abortions for poor women or counseling and referrals for abortions. Additionally, FOCA will prohibit onerous restrictions on a woman’s right to choose, such as mandated delays and targeted and medically unnecessary regulations.”

The reality is that FOCA is federal protection for the right for a woman to choose to terminate her pregnancy. It is NOT “unrestricted abortion” as most of the illiterate morons suggest. The right to choose is unconditional until up to twelve weeks into the pregnancy (i.e. “fetal viability”). Afterward, one may only be performed IF AND ONLY IF the mother’s life is endangered in carrying the pregnancy to term.