The Hyde-Weldon Conscience Protection Amendment

David already added the update to his post on the 20th, but it's worth mentioning twice, in case you missed it. This past Saturday heralded the first pro-life victory of the second term of the Bush administration with Congress' approval of the Hyde-Weldon Conscience Protection Amendment:

"We applaud Congress' recognition that hospitals and other health-care providers should have a right to choose not to be involved in destroying life," said Cathy Cleaver Ruse, a spokeswoman for the bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities.

"Over a million abortions are done every year by willing abortion providers in this country," Ruse said. "It is outrageous to suggest that Catholic health-care providers and others with moral objections should be forced into the practice of abortion."

"The threat of discrimination is not theoretical, it is real," said Ruse. "Already, hospitals in Alaska, New Jersey and New Mexico have been discriminated against because of their pro-life policies."

Current federal law already protects "health-care entities" from having to perform or provide for abortions.

The Hyde-Weldon Conscience Protection Amendment was needed because current law had been misinterpreted to protect only individual physicians and training programs, leaving hospitals, health plans, nurses, and other health-care participants without protection. (Zenit.Org 11/23/04).

The bill was sponsored by Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), a prominent Catholic in the pro-life movement, and Representative David Weldon of Florida (R-Fl.). (As David pointed out, the legislation was passed despite vehemently opposition by "pro-choice" Catholics[?] Maria Cantwell, Olympia Snowe, and Barbara Mikulski).

Several other aspects of the spending bill which may be of interest to our readers:

• Culture of Life Foundation reports:
  Funding for abstinence education went from $75 million to a little more than $104 million, an increase of 39 percent and more than $29 million from last year's budget. Though the new amount falls short of President George Bush's request of $181.9 million, it still makes headway into achieving parity for abstinence funding versus funding for "safe-sex" programs. A recent study by the Heritage Foundation revealed that the government spends $12 on safe-sex education and contraception promotion for every one dollar spent on abstinence education.
  (See also: "Abstinence Education Funds Hit Record Levels in Congressional Bill" LifeNews.com. Nov. 22, 2004).
  

• Family Research Council: "In the same bill, Congress also banned the patenting of human life, another key win for life. The legislation limits the ability of biotech companies from killing and exploiting human life for economic gain."
  

• There are reports that the bill enforces the Mexico City Policy banning U.S. money to U.N. programs which perform or promote abortion. I'm still researching this aspect, although NARAL released a statement on the 22nd protesting that "language that would have restored previously canceled funds to the United Nations Fund for Population Assistance (UNFPA) was stripped from the omnibus." For the past four years the Bush Administration had blocked funding to the UNFPA "because of the agency's support for China's population control program that involves forced abortions and sterilizations" (LifeNews.com). If anybody has more on this, please comment).
  

The bill is expected to be signed by Bush by December 3.