September 1, 2009

Obama's Dog Didn't Bark

By Ken Blackwell

Many of us remember the Sherlock Holmes story we read in high school. A famous racehorse is stolen from a barn at night. The barn was guarded by a dog.

Scotland Yard, England's famous police headquarters, sends Inspector Gregory to investigate, but Sherlock Holmes was on the case.

Inspector Gregory: "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?" Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time." Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

The dog didn't bark. That is what led Sherlock Holmes to conclude that the dog knew the perpetrator.

Now, we have a great national debate on the government takeover of health care. And one of the great questions in that debate concerns whether taxpayers will have to pay for killing unborn children. Or, as the liberals say: abortion services must be fully covered.

The Obama administration is going to great pains to deny that abortion is in their health care plan. The President himself says he prefers not to be "distracted" by this question.

As a candidate, Barack Obama went before Planned Parenthood. This evil enterprise annually kills 350,000 unborn children in the U.S. Its international arm gives powerful support to killing more than 50 million unborn children around the world every year.

In seeking Planned Parenthood's support, candidate Obama pledged that "the first thing" he would do is to sign what sponsors call the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). This misnamed legislation is often deceptively described as "codifying Roe v. Wade." That's like saying the Germans overran Luxembourg in World War II. They did that -- but so very much more.

FOCA would strike down every protective bill ever passed in Congress or in the states, every bill that even modestly protects unborn human life. Partial-birth abortion would be de-criminalized. Waiting periods would be struck down. Parental notice would be banned. Funding restrictions would be overturned. Informed consent laws, laws mandating that young mothers be offered -- not forced -- the opportunity to see their unborn child on ultra-sound--all these good, wise, and humane laws would be swept away by FOCA.

Well, we know that as President, Obama has not yet signed FOCA. Congressional liberals have not even pressed hard to pass FOCA.

Instead, the President is giving his best effort to pass ObamaCare, which he assures us does not require taxpayers to support abortion-on-demand.

Back to the dog that didn't bark. So how come Planned Parenthood isn't barking?

Why is it that the entire kennel of pro-abortion groups and abortion traffickers are not baying, yelping, yipping, and growling? Hasn't President Obama obviously failed to deliver on signing FOCA as "the first thing?" They are quiet. Instead, they all wag their tails for ObamaCare.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins weeks ago challenged Planned Parenthood's boss -- Cecile Richards -- to debate. My friend Tony does not ask Richards to debate the entirety of ObamaCare, just the one point: Is abortion funding in there or not? So far, Richards has limited herself to howling for passage of the bill. She won't come out and debate.

Question: Why would Richards and Planned Parenthood support any health care takeover if it did not include abortion-on-demand? Don't they really believe that, as Hillary told a congressional committee earlier this year, that reproductive health care includes "abortion services?"

We can look to the actions so far of congressional committees. Eleven times, pro-life amendments were offered in committee, amendments that would have specifically ruled out abortion funding. Eleven times these amendments were voted down. Pro-life Democrats joined Republicans in voting for these protective amendments. But they could not prevail.

Yet we still have some religious writers and leaders who protest that unless they see the word abortion in the bill, they won't believe it's covered. They won't see appendectomy, hysterectomy, or colonoscopy in the bill, either. Do these religious doubters doubt that those procedures are fully covered?

Too many writers and commentators have arrived on scene like a new inspector from Scotland Yard. It's as if they've never heard of these matters before. We have 33 years of experience fighting to keep American taxpayers from being forced to pay for abortion. We have learned under which shell they hide the marble.

Back to the barn. We know the reason the pro-abortion kennel is quiet is that if they get ObamaCare, they will get FOCA and everything else they want. And that's why we must continue to bark.

Ken Blackwell is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and a visiting professor at Liberty University School of Law.