NRL News
Page 5
April 2009
Volume 36
Issue 5

The Obama Abortion Agenda: 30 Plus ... and Counting

Obama:

1. Selected Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff. Emanuel had a 0% pro-life voting record as a congressman.

2. Chose Tom Daschle to head the Department of Health and Human Services. As Senate majority leader, Daschle was a leading advocate for pro-abortion laws and policies. Daschle later withdrew his name from consideration.

3. Selected Dawn Johnsen as assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel. Johnsen is former legal director of the pro-abortion group NARAL.

4. Appointed Ellen Moran as White House communications director. Moran is former director of the pro-abortion PAC EMILY’s List.

5. Named Melody Barnes as director of Domestic Policy Council. Barnes is a former board member of the pro-abortion Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

6. Chose pro-abortion New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to head the Commerce Department. Richardson later withdrew his name from consideration.

7. Selected Hillary Clinton to be secretary of state. In Congress, Clinton had a solid pro-abortion voting record, pushed for a health care reform plan that included mandatory coverage of abortion, and supports making abortion an international right.

8. Named Eric Holder to be attorney general. Holder’s confirmation was urged by a group of pro-abortion organizations.

9. Selected former Clinton official Jeanne Lambrew to be deputy director of White House Office of Health Reform, a choice praised by Planned Parenthood.

10. Announced pro-abortion Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano to be secretary of homeland security.

11. Named pro-abortion Rep. Hilda Solis as labor secretary.

12. Selected pro-abortion Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine as chairman of the Democratic Party.

13. Released a statement of support for Roe v. Wade, the decision that legalized abortion.

14. Announced a presidential memorandum that will give millions of taxpayer dollars to groups that perform or advocate for abortions in foreign countries.

15. Began the process of overturning pro-life conscience regulations promulgated by President Bush. The Bush regulations were designed to ensure that health care providers are not penalized for refusing to participate in abortions.

16. Nominated pro-abortion David Ogden as deputy attorney general.

17. Nominated pro-abortion Washington Gov. Gary Locke to be commerce secretary.

18. Nominated pro-abortion Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of health and human services, instead of Tom Daschle, who had withdrawn.

19. Signed an executive order forcing taxpayers to fund the type of embryonic stem cell research that requires the killing of human embryos.

20. Named pro-abortion Melanne Verveer to head new foreign policy post focusing on women’s issues.

21. Reversed George Bush’s executive order that promoted more research into ways of obtaining stem cells without harming unborn humans. The order Obama reversed would have promoted new forms of non-lethal stem cell research.

22. Named Tina Tchen to head new White House Council on Women and Girls, an appointment praised by Planned Parenthood.

23. Named Valerie Jarrett to White House Council on Women and Girls, also praised by Planned Parenthood.

24. Nominated David Hamilton to Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. As a federal district judge, Hamilton had held up enforcement of Indiana’s Woman’s Right to Know law on abortion for seven years, even though the law he was blocking was modeled after a similar law already upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

25. Designated $50 million dollars for the UN Population Fund, which promotes abortion and has worked closely with Chinese population control officials who use forced abortions as part of that nation’s one-child-per-family policy.

26. Issued draft guidelines for embryonic stem cell research, which will make it possible to get federal funds for programs that use cells from embryos killed for that purpose.

27. Nominated Harold Koh as chief attorney for the U.S. State Department. Koh advocates U.S. ratification of a treaty that has been used to pressure other countries to legalize abortion.

28. Nominated Ron Weich as assistant attorney general. Weich was an opponent of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which treats both a pregnant mother and her unborn child as victims in federal crimes of violence.

29. Nominated Margaret Hamburg, who has an extreme pro-abortion record, to head the Food and Drug Administration, the agency that regulates the abortion pill, RU486.

Members of Obama’s Administration:

30. Advocated for language at the UN Commission on Population and Development that could create an international right to abortion.

31. Testified before a congressional committee that the phrase “reproductive health” in international documents includes a right to abortion, and that it was official U.S. foreign policy to advocate for abortion rights in other nations (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to House Foreign Relations Committee, April 22, 2009).

Sources for the above information include LifeNews.com, the National Catholic Register, and the National Right to Life Committee. For a more detailed description of some of the worst of Obama’s pro-abortion actions, please visit www.nrlc.org and click Presidential Records.