A Matter of Life and Death
Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) to do away with state and federal laws regarding abortion?
"Freedom of Choice Act"
FOCA
"The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing that I'd do."
-- Senator Barack Obama, speaking to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, July 17, 2007
The "Freedom for Partial-Birth Abortionists Act" --
Pro-Abortion Lawmakers Propose "FOCA" to Invalidate All Limits on Abortion
WASHINGTON (April 25, 2007) – In response to the April 18 U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, prominent Democratic members of Congress the next day reintroduced the so-called "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA), a proposed federal law to nullify virtually all federal and state limitations on abortion.
NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson commented, "In the interests of truth in advertising, the bill should be renamed the ‘Freedom for Partial-Birth Abortionists Act'."
The House bill, H.R. 1964, was introduced by Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who in the new Democratic-majority Congress is the chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee that has jurisdiction over such legislation. At NRL News deadline on April 25, his bill had 71 cosponsors (70 Democrats, one Republican).
The lawmakers proposing the legislation, and groups endorsing it, repeatedly emphasized that the bill would, among other things, completely nullify the national ban on partial-birth abortion that the Supreme Court upheld on April 18 in Gonzales v. Carhart.
Congressman Nadler issued a statement harshly attacking the Supreme Court ruling. "Overturning a decision only a few years old, the Court has, for the first time since Roe v. Wade, allowed an abortion procedure to be criminalized," Nadler said. The FOCA, he noted, "would bar government – at any level -- from interfering with a woman's fundamental right to choose to bear a child, or to terminate a pregnancy."
"Those promoting this bill intend to use it as a litmus test for those who seek congressional office, or the White House, and as a fund-raising tool," NRLC's Douglas Johnson explained. "They know they cannot enact anything like this, so long as a pro-life president is in the White House."
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