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Wednesday, April 12, 2006

ACLU backs away from Maloney anti-CPC bill

ACLU Backs Away From Congressional Abortion Bill Targeting Pregnancy Centers
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Shortly after announcing its support for Congressional legislation that would target crisis pregnancy centers, the ACLU has backed off of its support for the pro-abortion bill. ....

Sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney ... the bill directs the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to create a rule prohibiting pregnancy centers from trying to deceive women into thinking they perform abortions.

Actually, I believe that the don't want CPCs to be allowed to use the word "abortion" in their advertising at all. Maloney seems to want the wording to be something like, "Call us or come here only if you are already 100% certain you want to give birth."
The ACLU, which frequently takes pro-life laws limiting abortion to court, immediately issued a press release supporting the bill.

However, the pro-abortion law firm is backing away from it after some ACLU activists said it would unconstitutionally limit the free speech rights of pregnancy centers.

Hats off to these ACLU members for putting something, anything -- in this case the Bill of Rights -- ahead of the politics of abortion.
The press release and any mention of the legislation, introduced March 30, have disappeared from the ACLU web site.

"Let's just pretend this whole thing never happened."

I wonder if some over-zealous ACLU employee threw the entire organization ont Rep. Maloney's bandwagon without first following proper procedures for securing the organization's backing.
According to the New York Sun newspaper, some civil libertarians within the ACLU spoke out against its position on the bill.

"I find it quite appalling that the ACLU is actively supporting this,"
board member Wendy Kaminer told the Sun in an interview. "I think this is precisely the kind of legislation we should be opposing, not supporting."

"I am troubled by the assumption in the legislation that abortion services,
as a matter of linguistics and a matter of law, cannot include discussing
with a woman why she shouldn't have an abortion," Kaminer said.

Has anybody actually seen a CPC advertise "abortion services"? The phrase I've seen is "abortion information".

But at any rate, it's nice to see somebody -- in this case the ACLU -- put their espoused core values ahead of abortion politics.

Now, if we can get the mainline "prochoice" organizations to start putting actual flesh-and-blood women ahead of abortion politics, we'll be making serious progress.

Not that I'm holding my breath.

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