by Rusty Pugh
(AgapePress) – The U.S. House is expected to vote tomorrow on a bill that would recognize unborn children as victims of violent federal crimes.
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act will be the first vote on a pro-life issue in the new Congress. National Right to Life spokesman Doug Johnson says under current federal law, unborn children are not recognized as victims, even when the child dies during the commission of a violent crime.
“If an assailant … on a military base [for example] attacks a pregnant woman and breaks her finger, that's an assault,” Johnson says. “If he attacks a pregnant woman and kills her unborn child, that's just an assault, too, because current federal law does not recognize the unborn child as a victim. This bill would correct that.”
Johnson says pro-abortion groups are strongly opposed to the bill.
“Although this bill does not apply to abortion, the pro-abortion groups such as Planned Parenthood are vigorously lobbying against the bill,” he says. “We expect a very close vote in the House of Representatives, as the House will be forced to choose between the Unborn Victims of Violence Act and a counter-proposal, which is more or less the antithesis of it. Under the bill being pushed by pro-abortion groups, only one victim would be recognized in these crimes.”
The House approved the bill during the last Congressional session, but it was placed on veto threat by former President Clinton. It then died without action in the Senate.
Pro-Aborts, Pro-Lifers Face Off in Weekend March
by Bill Fancher
WASHINGTON, DC (AgapePress) – Sunday's pro-abortion march around the U.S. Capitol, sponsored by the National Organization for Women, drew a crowd of nearly 7,000 college students. It also drew about 100 pro-lifers who lined the parade route, displaying signs and pictures of aborted babies.
Sunday's NOW rally was called an “Emergency Action for Women's Lives.” According to observers, more than 90% of the pro-abortion demonstrators were white male and female students from Washington-area colleges. They included homosexual and lesbian activists, nude women, transvestites, and several pro-abortion religious groups.
Those marchers responded to the small group of pro-life “counter-demonstrators” with hateful chanting, vulgar gestures, and anti-religious slogans — prompting one pro-lifer to say the emergency march indicates pro-abortion advocates are “running scared.”
One of the counter-demonstrators was Eric Whittington of Rock for Life, a youth-oriented pro-life group. “All of the pro-abort leaders have been recruiting at local colleges for the past four months,” he said. “One good thing, though — this is all that they could get [to march].”
Brandi Swindell is with Rock for Life in Idaho. “When I heard that there was going to the National Organization for Women march, I knew I had to come out here,” Swindell said. “It's just heart-breaking to see all of these women believing the lie that in order to fight for equal rights or women's rights, you have to believe in the right to kill a pre-born child.”
Swindell commented on the demeanor of the marchers, saying they “are very aggressive and very angry. They're pointing, they're cursing … just very, very angry and very harsh, and it's very heart-breaking because you see a lot of women [who] are so angry and so outraged, and they're believing a lie that's telling them … that if you don't have the right to kill another person — your baby — then you should be angry.”
Another pro-life demonstrator was Katie Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition. “I think that their [pro-abortion marchers] showing is rather pathetic,” she says, “but they are really trying to get young women to be sucked into the idea that pro-abortion is women's rights, when in fact they do nothing to really help a woman have a choice.”
“I am holding a sign that has the list of hundreds of women who have … been killed by legal abortion,” Mahoney said, “and I try to point that out to them and they just … give me an obscene gesture or turn away. They don't really want to see the truth.”
“The signs that we're showing [are] very disturbing to them [the pro-abortion marchers], so they just chant and scream.”
Police were able to prevent any physical incidents from occurring between the groups representing the two sides of the abortion debate.
(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)
