Pro-Lifers Commend Senate Shut-Out of Schumer's Sham Amendment
by Bill Fancher and Jenni Parker
March 9, 2005
(AgapePress) - Conservatives are celebrating a victory in the U.S. Senate yesterday. An attempt to discriminate against pro-lifers by denying them access to bankruptcy protection failed to get the required number of votes it needed to pass.Senator Charles Schumer introduced the amendment to a proposed bankruptcy reform bill -- an amendment which would have removed bankruptcy protection as an option for pro-lifers that have a judgment levied against them. The move had many pro-life groups and pro-family leaders up in arms.
Jesse Binnall of the Public Advocate of the United States organization staged a demonstration in protest of the amendment outside the senator's office. His protest involved a group of people he called the "Chuck Schumer Thought Police," who handed out specially printed cards to anyone who would take them.
"We were passing out some 'Go directly to jail' cards," Binnall says, "because really, we see what Senator Schumer wants to do -- he wants to put pro-life activists, politically incorrect protesters, in debtors' prison." However, the pro-choice senator's effort failed, and the pro-life demonstration organizer was pleased to recap the legislative confrontation and its overall result.
"Charles Schumer actually introduced an amendment to the bankruptcy bill to make it so pro-life activists could not file bankruptcy," Binnall notes. And when the votes were tallied, the Public Advocate spokesman points out, "It was 46-53. So it went down today, but it was closer than we would have liked."
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Tony Perkins |
Pro-Lifers Hail Defeat of Pro-Choice Senator's Sham Amendment
After hearing that the New York senator's legislative attack had been turned away, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (FRC) was among the many pro-family leaders who celebrated. "This is a major victory for pro-life forces and for the new conservative Senate, in that they fought back this Schumer amendment."Perkins says the senator and his pro-choice supporters across the nation were testing their muscle with this effort, and according to the FRC president, this defeat is an indication that their strength is failing. "I think this has put the Schumer amendment to rest," Perkins says, "and I think the importance about this vote is that it does show that the pro-abortion forces are losing their grip, and that more and more the Senate is becoming respectful of life and those that stand in defense of life."
Lanier Swann of Concerned Women for America is glad that the Senate majority was able to see through Schumer's fraudulent and divisive attempt to target pro-lifers. The CWA's Director of Government Relations says the spurious bankruptcy amendment deliberately created a false impression that pro-lifers charged with violating the Federal Access to Clinic Entrance Act are evading their court-imposed fines when, in fact, such fines have been adamantly enforced by the courts.
According to the CWA spokesperson, the senators who voted for the measure are, like Schumer, hostile to pro-life advocates and apparently, like him, were willing to jeopardize an important bipartisan concern in order to pass what Swann calls "this poisonous amendment," which was no more than a "ready-to-launch missile" aimed at pro-lifers.
"Senator Schumer's amendment was a blatant attempt to criminalize pro-life advocates who peacefully protest outside abortion clinics, with full legal protection, by insinuating that their intent is to commit violent acts," Swann says, adding that the lawmaker's claim to solve a bankruptcy problem with the measure has been "nullified by his avid support for abortion."
Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family Action also expressed relief that the U.S. Senate refused to pass the amendment. In a statement on Tuesday, he said the lawmakers "showed wisdom today in rejecting the onerous Schumer amendment. Had this measure been voted into law, it would have relegated Americans who value life to the status of second-class citizens."
The Focus on the Family founder and chairman characterized the type of attack embodied in the New York senator's measure as both insulting and degrading to pro-lifers. Also, he observed that the amendment was "particularly troubling" because it singled out a specific group of people -- those that hold a pro-life viewpoint -- for discrimination.
Dobson says this is not the first time Schumer has "attempted to enshrine his personal disagreement with the pro-life movement in bankruptcy legislation." Thankfully, he adds, those thinly veiled attacks have been turned back by the majority of U.S. senators who understand that the pro-abortion/pro-life debate has no place in a discussion of bankruptcy law.
