Clinton Wants Taxpayers to Pay for Abortion Facility Security

WASHINGTON -- The White House plans to propose a $4.5 million initiative Friday to counter violence at abortion facilities, charging taxpayers with the bill or paying for added security, such as alarm systems, bulletproof windows and closed-circuit camera systems.

First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was expected to make the announcement in a speech to the pro-abortion National Abortion Rights Action League on the 26th anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion on demand.

The money, to be included in the president's budget proposal for fiscal 2000, would will pay for abortion facilities to purchase motion detectors and improved lighting, according to a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity. It will also pay for
security assessments to determine which abortion facilities are most at risk.

At the same time as the announcement, tens of thousands of pro-life supporters will be participating in the March for Life and related pro-life activities.

At a 12:30 press conference today, the organizations representing the Yes for Life Coalition submitted 85,151 signatures of registered Maine voters to the Secretary of State's office to force a referendum to ban partial birth abortion.  Over 150 pro-lifers filled the stairway in the Hall of Flags to cheer the announcement.  The signatures represent over 20% of the number of voters who voted in the last gubernatorial election.  396 towns out of 415 were represented.  And the total is over twice the number required by the Secretary of State's office.

Following is the statement read by Christopher Coughlan, Executive Director of Maine Right to Life during the press conference.

"Good afternoon."

"If ultimately the courts refuse to recognize their constitutional character (partial birth abortion bans), as happened in Michigan, another expansion of a woman’s right to kill her offspring will have occurred.  That eventuality will be another proof that abortion in any form is the exception that swallows all rules, and that the right to abortion is not essentially a right to terminate a pregnancy, but a right to terminate a human life.  For that reason, the partial birth abortion debate is the most defining   moment of the abortion debate since Roe v. Wade, and the resulting litigation is, indeed, the final frontier of abortion jurisprudence." (James Bopp, Jr, JD and Curtis Cook MD    "Partial Birth Abortion:  The Final Frontier of Abortion Jurisprudence"    Issues in Law and Medicine    Summer 1998)

Today we begin a campaign that represents a defining moment for the state of Maine.  It is not about the economy or jobs, not about education, not about uniting the two Maine’s, not about the north woods.  It is a defining moment with even greater significance and more value to our future.  It represents how we wish to live and how we wish to treat others.

We have all experienced the joy of watching little children play at the beach near the water’s edge.  On a warm day, with blue skies and a cool breeze, little children work feverishly to build a castle as the tide encroaches.  With pales and shovels and seaweed as the castle flag, they dig and scrape and shape their creation – the one that will withstand the tide’s powerful force.  A moat is built, the line in the sand past which no water will come.

This referendum is the line in the sand.  The castle – the core values with which any culture can not go without -  a commitment to the value of innocent human life -- in this case -- tiny lives, just inches from drawing their first breath, who simply deserve protection– and a chance.

We invite the Legislature and the people of Maine to help us draw that line and secure the castle.  The tide has encroached.  Behind it are powerful forces.

And we only represent the weakest – those who depend on us for their life.

Let us hope and pray that this simple message -- counter-cultural as it may be -- is heard, grasped, and affirmed."


Christopher J Coughlan, Maine Right to Life
http://www.mint.net/life4me