August 2003

As Summer Ends, Pro-Lifers Gear Up
For Fall Battles

This summer marked the fifth consecutive year that Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) and its network of chapter volunteers held an educational pro-life booth at all 94 Minnesota county fairs.

Senate Democrats Stall Unborn Victims of Violence Act With Proposed Amendments on Unrelated Issues

WASHINGTON (August 5, 2003) - - The U.S. Senate began a month-long recess on August 1 with action on the Unborn Victims of Violence Act still not formally scheduled because Democratic senators opposed to the bill are insisting that they want to offer amendments on entirely unrelated issues.

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act (UVVA, S. 1019) would recognize an unborn child as a legal victim if he or she is injured or killed during commission of a federal crime.

Facing Continued Obstruction in Senate, Pro-Life Forces Move Ahead in Congress

By Douglas Johnson
NRLC Federal Legislative Director

WASHINGTON (Aug. 5, 2003) - - Pro-life forces are moving forward on a number of fronts in Congress, but progress is slow because of the strength of the pro-abortion bloc in the U.S. Senate.

The 108th Congress, which began in January, is taking August off for its traditional summer recess. The session will resume on September 2, and is expected to continue into November.

After another recess, the 108th Congress will conduct a second session to begin in January 2004, which will run into the fall of this presidential election year.

What follows is a summary of the status of a number of key pro-life issues involving children in utero and human embryos.

From the President

Wanda Franz, Ph.D.

The Truth Is: Abortion Hurts Women

Editor's note. Dr. Franz is on vacation. We are reprinting her column from August 2002 which dealt with a truly timeless dimension of the abortion debate.

We know that the culture of abortion in America is built on lies. One of the cruelest and most damaging of these is that "abortion is safer than childbirth." This is one of the basic claims and assumptions of the abortion culture, so any evidence that abortion harms women must be suppressed by abortion supporters.

It is clear from polling data that many Americans are uncomfortable with the idea of abortion, yet feel they must accept it because they believe it to be necessary for the health and well-being of women. If pro-lifers could show this ambivalent group of Americans that abortion, in addition to killing babies, also damages women, we would go a long way toward exposing the lies of the abortion culture and undermining the position of those who consider themselves to be "pro-choice."

We now have a new resource to help us meet this end. Women's Health After Abortion--The Medical and Psychological Evidence, written by Elizabeth Ring-Cassidy and Ian Gentles, is an excellent summary of the literature on the negative effects of abortion on women. It was published in Canada by the deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research and is now available from the National Right to Life Education Department (see page 9).