Support CWA Please make a tax-deductible contribution! $25 $75 $150 $500 $   (Ex: Enter 100.00 to contribute $100.00) Interested in joining Capitol Hill Partnership or direct monthly giving? Click here.

Dear Friends,

Recently, the House Financial Services Appropriations Subcommittee passed a bill which will allow the District of Columbia (D.C.) to use taxpayer money to pay for abortion-on-demand for its residents with virtually no limitations. The bill adopted the Obama Administration's proposal to make "local" public funds available for abortion in D.C. Next, the full Appropriations Committee will vote on this bill when Congress returns from the July 4th recess. Your Representative on the Appropriations Committee needs to hear from you today that the D.C. Abortion Ban must be reinstated.

D.C. funding is different from the states because "federal" and "local" funds are co-mingled in the District. Congress appropriates the entire D.C. budget including locally generated revenues. Allowing D.C. officials the ability to designate "local" funds to pay for abortions is a scheme to let the city fund abortion-on-demand.

In the past, when D.C. has been able to use "local" funds for abortion, they became so extreme on abortion they even took money away from AIDS patients to pay for elective abortions. In 1994, the District took $1 million away from the Medical Charities fund, which was created to help AIDS patients, to pay for abortions instead. Then, the District needed additional funds to pay for AIDS treatments.

The D.C. Abortion Ban was reinstated in 1996 by the Dornan amendment which prohibited Financial Services Appropriations funds appropriated for D.C. from being used for abortion except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.

When the full Committee considers the Financial Services Appropriations bill, Representatives Todd Tiahrt (R-Kansas) and Lincoln Davis (D-Tennessee) will introduce an amendment to reinstate the Dornan language to ensure that the most innocent of lives are protected, women are not exploited and taxpayer monies are not misappropriated.

Please call your Representative on the Appropriations Committee today and ask them to support the Tiahrt/Davis Amendment to reinsert provisions to protect life. Ask your Representative to oppose the entire Appropriations bill if the ban is not reinstated.

Thank you,

Wendy Wright
President