If the Freedom of Choice Act goes into affect Catholic hospitals will be forced to perform abortions, and will be forced to close if they don’t. And your physician will probably lose his license if he doesn’t agree to perform. This will have an effect on your local choices for health care, leaving some rural parts of the country without any health care at all.
The following information was taken verbatim from a parish bulletin insert from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, website www.uscbb.org/prolife/issues/FOCA

We are facing the most serious threat to pro-life policies ever-the “Freedom of Choice Act”, or FOCA. This bill would create a right to abortion the government could not limit and bring about a national abortion policy far worse than the US Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. For the first time, abortion would become an entitlement the government must fund and promote. Citizens would lose the freedom they now have to enact even modest regulation of the abortion industry. FOCA would:

1. Eliminate regulations that protect women from unsafe clinics and unscrupulous abortionists.
2. Force American taxpayers to fund abortions.
3. Force every state to allow partial-birth abortions-its sponsors have said a primary purpose of the bill is to ensure that killing partially born children will again be permitted nationwide.
4. Run roughshod over the conscience rights if physicians, nurses, and hospitals that oppose abortion on religious, moral or ethical grounds.
5. Strip parents of their right and responsibility to be involved in their minor daughter’s abortion decisions.

Simply put, if FOCA becomes law, it will put at risk all the widely-supported laws that for 35 years have promoted women’s health, ensured informed consent, protected minors, ensured parental involvement, safeguarded rights of conscience, and respected the desire of most citizens not to support abortion with their tax dollars.
FOCA also explicitly encourages challenges in court against any law or regulation that protects unborn children and their mothers and families in the abortion context, promising a virtual cottage industry of lawsuits.
And FOCA’s tentacles would reach beyond federal policies to every state and local law or regulation having to do with abortion.

FOCA is without doubt the most radical abortion legislation ever considered in the United States.

Abortion supporters have been trying to pass FOCA since 1989-and now we have a Congress more disposed than any in recent years to pass the bill, and a new President who has said he will sign the measure into law.
Your voice is needed more than ever! At the time of serious national challenges, Americans should unite to serve the good of all, born, and unborn-not single out the most defenseless human beings for an expanded attack on their lives.
Please urge your federal elected officials to oppose FOCA or any similar measure, and to retain laws against the federal funding and promotion of abortion. FOCA embodies the public policy goals of pro-abortion groups. These groups will promote the bill’s passage directly, and advance its agenda by working to reverse pro-life laws one at a time.

What You Can Do:
1. Sign a postcard
2. Write a thoughtful letter.
3. Make a phone call.
4. Send an e-mail message.
5. Write a letter-to-the editor to your local paper.
6. Call a radio talk show.
7. Speak at a public event.
8. Meet with your Representative and Senators.
9. Place an ad in a local paper. See www.uscb.org/prolife/media/docs/foca.pdf

Where to Call:
US Capital switchboard: (202)224-3121. Ask for the offices of your Representative and 2 Senators.
The White House: (202) 456-1111.

Where to Write:

The Honorable (Name of Representative Here)
United States House of Representative
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable (Name of Senator Here)
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Send an E-Mail

E-mail messages reinforce communications sent through postcards, letters, phone calls, and personal meetings. To send e-mails to Capitol Hill or the White House, please visit the special e-mail action page at: nchla.org

For More Information

Please visit www.nchla.org and
www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/FOCA

Your help is urgently needed! Please take action today!

National Committee for a Human Life Amendment 1500 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite 24 Washington, DC 20005 www.nchla.org