The following is an excerpt from Rep. Chris Smith's remarks to the 2009 NRLC Convention.
Thus far, 2009 has been tough in Congress. Not surprisingly, in the last five months, the pro-life cause has suffered a string of setbacks imposed by Mr. Obama.
At a time when the country--the world--needs compassionate moral leadership that is inclusive of all regardless of age, sex, race, disability or condition of dependency, Mr. Obama has earned the dubious title of the Abortion President.
He talks inclusion, but practices exclusion. His deeds speak louder than his words.
With all his gifts and charisma, it is tragic beyond words that Mr. Obama has chosen to promote the culture of death and in record time has made the White House the wholly owned subsidiary of the abortion lobby. For a man who has been given so much to then deny the right to live--to exist--to those who have so little is, well, unfair and tragic. He has done much harm--and is capable of inflicting much more. Thus through prayer, fasting and smart work we must absolutely resolve to stop his misguided abortion agenda.
This can and must be our finest hour.
At precisely the same time as President Obama continues to assiduously assure Americans, including graduates at Notre Dame last month, that he wants to reduce abortion at home and abroad, his administration is aggressively seeking to reverse virtually every modest pro-life law ever enacted or policy promulgated since Roe v. Wade, via health care restructuring, executive orders, reinterpretation of existing policy, support for the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) and by repealing funding riders.
In like manner, overseas, the Abortion President has devoted huge resources and is expanding an enormous amount of political capital in the nefarious business of toppling pro-life laws in sovereign nations.
The Abortion President is the master of the art of misdirection. From his speeches we hear soothing, pretty, mesmerizing words loftily summoning us to common ground--common burial ground that is.
Obama's talk of common ground is a trap--a snare--for the gullible and for the nominally pro-life who have emerged as the newest enablers. Of course common ground rhetoric isn't new at all. In the end, it all boils down to appropriating hundreds of millions of dollars of additional taxpayer funds to groups like Planned Parenthood--a group as Randy O'Bannon reminded us today at his workshop--killed over 305,000 children in 2007 alone, pushing a few non-controversial pro-life positions like the adoption option all the while seeking to nullify authentic abortion reducing policies--the real common ground--including public funding bans, women's right to know laws and parental notice statues. Both the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute and pro-life advocates actually agree that prohibitions on taxpayer funding for abortion significantly reduce the number of abortions.
According to the Guttmacher Institute 18-35 percent of Medicaid patients who would have had an abortion carry their babies to term when Medicaid funding is not available.
Similarly, a recent study found that when laws requiring one parent's consent before a minor girl obtains an abortion were enacted, the minor abortion rate was reduced by 19 percent, and by 31 percent when parental consent from both parents was required.
Yet the Abortion President wants to obliterate these policies.
Clinton tried to sell common ground. Gore used it as well. And now our Abortion President is presenting it to the nation as if he invented it. It's a trap.
Read the rest of Rep. Smith's remarks.
